Over One-Third of Americans Use CAM

More than 37 percent of U.S. households regularly turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for everything from headaches to diabetes, according to a new nationwide survey. Massage therapy is one of the top three most-popular types of CAM.

The survey was conducted by Thomson Medstat, a company that provides research and other services.

CAM therapies are broadly defined as therapeutic or preventive health-care practices such as massage, homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine.

The 2006 consumer health-care survey asked 23,000 adults about their use of CAM and found that:

• 37.2 percent of U.S. households use some form of CAM. The most common reason was to improve general wellness.

• CAM use is most prevalent among those with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 and those with post-graduate college degrees.

• 64.1 percent of respondents said their physicians were aware of their use of CAM.

• 41.9 percent said at least some of the costs of their CAM treatments were covered by insurance.

• Herbal supplements and massage/chiropractic care were the most commonly used CAM, followed by mind/body practices, energy therapies and naturopathy. 

• Affluent, highly educated Americans are driving the growth of CAM. Nearly half (49.9 percent) of households earning more than $100,000 per year sought CAM in the past 12 months. Likewise, 49.6 percent of those with post-graduate degrees used CAM.

• At the lower end of the income/education scale, utilization dropped to 30 percent in households earning $15,000 to $24,999 per year and to 18.1 percent among those without a high-school diploma.