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DataWatch

Access To Conventional Medical Care And The Use Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine

Abstract

 
The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the United States has greatly increased during the past decade. Using survey data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), we show that adults who did not get, or delayed, needed medical care because of cost in the prior twelve months were also more likely than all other adults to use CAM. Recent increases in CAM use could be the result of not only the desire for individual empowerment and patient dissatisfaction with conventional medicine, as has been claimed, but also of increases in the relative cost of conventional health care.

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain why CAM use has become so prevalent.⁵ Patient dissatisfaction with conventional treatment may have led to increased CAM use because of the perceived ineffectiveness of modern medicine and a lack of trust in the health care system.⁶ It could also be a result of the need for individual empowerment and personal control over health care use.⁷ Finally, it could be high because there is congruence between CAM and the personal beliefs, spirituality, and values of patients.⁸

The increasing use of CAM has taken place at the same time that conventional health care has generally been thought to have improved in effectiveness, while simultaneously becoming much more expensive. From 1988 to 2001, yearly increases in job-based health insurance premiums were higher than increases in both earnings and overall inflation, except during the 1995–1997 period.⁹ Moreover, the percentage of uninsured workers grew from 20 percent in 1988 to 23 percent in 1999. If the per capita cost of health care continues to increase faster than personal income, recent estimates put the percentage of uninsured workers as high as 30 percent in 2009.¹⁰

Cost concerns are particularly relevant for low-income uninsured adults with chronic health conditions that require ongoing health care treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released guidelines to promote the proper use of CAM and reduce its potential risks.¹¹ Adverse CAM effects could be a source of concern among people in this population because they also would be more likely to delay or postpone health care because of cost or to use CAM without supervision.

Few studies have analyzed why the use of CAM therapies has increased so rapidly in recent years. Some argue that this can be attributed mostly to an increase in the size of the population relying on CAM rather than to increases in the average use of CAM among users of these therapies.¹² The conventional wisdom is that most adults use CAM because these therapies are consistent with their own values and beliefs about health, not because they are dissatisfied with conventional medical care.

Absent from the CAM literature is the view that the increasing use of nonconventional health care can in large part be a reflection of the growing relative cost of conventional therapies compared with the cost of CAM and the consequent lack of access to conventional health care. Using data from the 2002 NHIS, this study analyzes whether CAM use by adults is related to the perceived affordability of medical care.

Study Data And Methods

Top Study Data And Methods Results Discussion Editor's Notes NOTES

 
The NHIS has been described in detail elsewhere.¹³ It contains health, health care, demographic, and socioeconomic data on a nationally representative sample of the U.S. noninstitutionalized population. One adult age eighteen or older was selected at random from each family in the sample to obtain more detailed health and demographic information. The 2002 NHIS Sample Adult Core questionnaire includes an Alternative Health/Complementary and Alternative Medicine Supplement that collected information on the use of seventeen CAM therapies (n = 31,044). Respondents were asked whether they had used any of these nonconventional therapies during the past twelve months. After we excluded people with missing data in the variables of interest, our final sample consisted of 29,881 adult respondents.

We wanted to determine whether those who said that they delayed—or did not get—needed medical care because of cost were also more likely to have used CAM therapies during the same year. More specifically, we constructed a "delayed medical care" dichotomous variable by combining the answers to the following two questions: "During the past 12 months, has medical care been delayed for [you] because of worry about the cost?" and "During the past 12 months, was there any time when [you] needed medical care, but did not get it because [you] couldn’t afford it?" If the respondent answered affirmatively to at least one of these questions, the respondent is classified as having delayed or not getting the medical care needed.¹⁴

Although the 2002 NHIS asked respondents whether they had used CAM therapies because they thought that conventional medical treatments were too expensive, we did not use these questions in our analyses precisely because they were asked of CAM users only. We are interested in the differences in perceptions of relative costliness between users and nonusers, and this question cannot be answered from data on users alone.

We used logistic regression to analyze the relationship between such cost-related medical care delays and CAM use. We controlled for whether the respondent had health insurance or not, years of education, age and its square, sex, marital status (married versus otherwise), self-reported health status (reporting fair/poor health versus otherwise), the presence/absence of certain health conditions (hypertension, cancer, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis), ethnicity/race (Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, black, and other), place of birth (U.S. versus abroad) and years residing in the United States, family size, and U.S. region of residence (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West). We also included five categories of family income according to the federal poverty level. All of these variables were included in the logistic regression models based on previous research suggesting that CAM use can vary greatly across these dimensions and population subgroups.¹⁵

Results

Top Study Data And Methods Results Discussion Editor's Notes NOTES

 
Exhibit 1 presents the prevalence of CAM use in the United States and compares the use of CAM between those delaying or not getting, or both, needed medical care because of cost and those not reporting any difficulties in getting needed medical care. We found that 61 percent of respondents reported using at least one of the seventeen different CAM practices. Nonconventional therapies used by at least 5 percent of the U.S. adult population include prayer and spiritual healing, herbal medicine, relaxation techniques, chiropractic care, yoga/tai chi/qi qong, and massage therapy.¹⁶

Exhibit 2 reports the adjusted odds ratios for the use of CAM between those reporting delaying or not getting, or both, needed medical care and those not reporting any difficulties in getting care, based on logistic regression estimates that control for other influences.¹⁷ We found that those having difficulties obtaining needed medical care were 61 percent more likely to have used at least one CAM therapy during the previous year than those not reporting any difficulties (odds ratio = 1.61). These results are consistent across almost all CAM therapies, and the adjusted odds ratios are particularly high (and statistically significant at the 5 percent level) for special diets, homeopathy, high-dose or megavitamin therapy, acupuncture, energy healing therapy/Reiki, folk medicine, and ayurveda.

Top Study Data And Methods Results Discussion Editor's Notes NOTES

The results suggest an additional explanation for the rise of CAM in the United States since the 1990s. We argue that this could in part be a reflection of the growing relative cost of conventional health care. Medical care has become less affordable for many people, and health insurance premiums have been increasing relatively rapidly. Out-of-pocket payments have risen in absolute amounts for those with health insurance. The percentage of uninsured workers has also shown steady growth during the past few years, and it is expected to increase even more if health care costs continue to increase faster than personal income.

Previous research has argued that CAM therapy use is increasingly common in the United States because these nonconventional health care practices are more consistent with the health-related beliefs and values of many patients. However, it is unclear whether patients’ values and beliefs have changed greatly over the past few years. There is also incontrovertible evidence that health care costs have grown faster than incomes and prices.

The findings presented here should be interpreted with care, given that there are other alternative explanations that could not be ruled out because of the lack of data on all aspects of CAM. For example, consumers could have become more aware and more accepting of CAM therapies over time. CAM therapies and products that have been available only in nontraditional outlets can now be found everywhere. Although early adopters of CAM probably were drawn to these therapies because of their health attitudes and beliefs, the increasing availability of CAM has now allowed many adults, holistically inclined or not, to experiment with these therapies and products.

Reductions in the absolute price of CAM therapies could also lead to changes in the relative price between CAM and conventional medicine. If people are more likely to report problems in access when they are sicker (although our health status measures are imperfect), then the greater use of CAM may simply represent greater use of care of all types by those in poorer health.¹⁸

It is also possible that if people use CAM first, then they would be more likely to report that they delayed needed medical care because of cost because they would have less money available for conventional care. We were also not able to control for the effects of several important variables that have been shown previously to be predictive of CAM use (for example, the degree of satisfaction with conventional medicine, health beliefs, philosophical orientation, and the desire to have some control over health decisions).¹⁹ Finally, the term "needed medical care" in the survey instrument is not precisely defined; it presumably refers to conventional medical care (not CAM) and reflects the person’s subjective judgment about value or need for that type of care. It is possible that people who say that they "need" conventional medical care also have weaker tastes for CAM, so the bias from this imprecision would go against our main hypothesis.

The observed increases in CAM use associated with the lack of access to medical care suggest that some patients are looking for lower-cost care and not necessarily for equally costly alternatives that better serve their real or perceived needs. For example, many people who do not have access to inexpensive appropriate health care either manage to live without the services as best as they can or resort to self-medication.²⁰ From this point of view, the recent rise in CAM use—such as self-medication—is just another reflection of the rising cost of health care in the United States.

Interestingly, some employers are now promoting the use of CAM in hopes of controlling cost increases related to providing health benefits to workers. This approach—which essentially reflects consumer demand for CAM—can lead to some reductions in total health care spending if CAM substitutes for conventional care, especially given that a substantial share of the health costs faced by employers are related to chronic health conditions.²¹ More specifically, some employers are attempting to reduce cost by implementing financial incentives for the use of preventive medicine and CAM therapies such as naturopathy and acupuncture. There is evidence, however, that users of CAM therapies use more general and preventive health services than those who rely solely on conventional care.²² If this were the case, then costs per patient would probably increase for health insurance plans that decide to cover CAM.

Some recent proposals to improve the affordability of conventional health care via, for example, refundable tax credits or tax deductions for health insurance premiums would most likely decrease the number of CAM users that rely on these therapies based solely on the relatively high cost of conventional health care.²³ Other proposals that involve personal spending accounts and greater consumer responsibility for costs might encourage it (as long as funds from spending accounts can be used for CAM).

From a population health policy perspective, understanding more about these shifts is particularly important because the safety and efficacy of CAM is largely unknown.²⁴ For example, herbal medicines may interact with pharmaceutical drugs in harmful ways, and this may be unknown to both the user and the health care provider, given the limited research on CAM effectiveness up until now. This has potential population health consequences, since patients do not typically tell their providers about their use of CAM, perhaps because many of them think that their physicians would be skeptical of their CAM use. Nonetheless, some adults who cannot afford conventional care end up using CAM therapies that are relatively inexpensive but have been proved to be effective and have fewer side effects than conventional care.²⁵

Editor's Notes

Top Study Data And Methods Results Discussion Editor's Notes NOTES

 
José A. Pagán (pagan{at}wharton.upenn.edu) is a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas–Pan American in Edinburg. Mark Pauly is the Bendheim Professor, Health Care Systems Department, at Penn’s Wharton School. Both authors are also senior fellows at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.

The authors thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health and Society Scholars Program for its financial support. They also thank Cynthia J. Brown, H. Shelton Brown, and Sonya Grier for helpful comments and suggestions.

NOTES

Top Study Data And Methods Results Discussion Editor's Notes NOTES

 

1. P.M. Barnes et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use among Adults: United States, 2002," Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics no. 343 (Atlanta: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 May 2004).
2. D.M. Eisenberg et al., "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use in the United States, 1990–1997," Journal of the American Medical Association 280, no. 18 (1998): 1569–1575.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
3. Barnes et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use." For related evidence, see also A.P. Rafferty et al., "Prevalence of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use: State-Specific Estimates from the 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 10 (2002): 1598–1600.[Free Full Text]
4. Eisenberg et al., "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use."
5. J.A. Astin, "Why Patients Use Alternative Medicine: Results of a National Study," Journal of the American Medical Association 279, no. 19 (1998): 1548–1553.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
6. Barnes et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use."
7. F. Riessman, "Alternative Health Movements," Social Policy 24, no. 3 (1994): 53–57[Medline]; and C. Vincent and A. Furnham, "Why Do Patients Turn to Complementary Medicine? An Empirical Study," British Journal of Clinical Psychology 35, no. 2, Part 1 (1996): 37–48.
8. Vincent and Furnham, "Why Do Patients"; and J.S. Levin and J. Coreil, "‘New Age’ Healing in the U.S.," Social Science and Medicine 23, no. 9 (1986): 889–897.
9. J. Gabel et al., "Job-based Health Insurance in 2001: Inflation Hits Double Digits, Managed Care Retreats," Health Affairs 20, no. 5 (2001): 180–186.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
10. T. Gilmer and R. Kronick, "Calm Before the Storm: Expected Increase in the Number of Uninsured Americans," Health Affairs 20, no. 6 (2001): 207–210.[Free Full Text]
11. World Health Organization, Guidelines on Developing Consumer Information on Proper Use of Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine (Geneva: WHO, 2004).
12. Eisenberg et al., "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use."
13. Barnes et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use"; National Center for Health Statistics, Data File Documentation, National Health Interview Survey, 2002 (Hyattsville, Md.: NCHS, 2003); and N. Hanyu, C. Simile, and A.M. Hardy, "Utilization of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by United States Adults: Results from the 1999 National Health Interview Survey," Medical Care 40, no. 4 (2002): 353–358.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
14. Our results did not change qualitatively if we used the two questions separately.
15. Eisenberg et al., "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use"; Astin, "Why Patients Use Alternative Medicine"; and NCHS, Data File Documentation.
16. CAM therapies are defined in the Technical Notes of Barnes et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use."
17. The full logistic regression estimates are not reported here but are available upon request from the authors. Send e-mail to José Pagán at pagan{at}wharton.upenn.edu.
18. We also estimated all of the logit CAM models without controlling for health status, and the odds ratios differ on average by less than 4 percent from those reported in Exhibit 2. Thus, the results do not seem to be sensitive to our health status measure, and, as such, they are unlikely to be driven by unmeasured health status. The models were also estimated with an additional binary variable capturing whether the respondent had used physician services within the past year. The odds ratios for the delayed/postponed care variable fell on average by less than 4 percent.
19. Astin, "Why Patients Use Alternative Medicine."
20. N. Vuckovic, "Self-Care among the Uninsured: ‘You Do What You Can Do,’" Health Affairs 19, no. 4 (2000): 197–199.[Medline]
21. D. Roberts and E. Kelleher, "Alternative Therapy: U.S. Companies Search for Radical Ways to Cut the Spiralling Cost of Employee Health Care," Financial Times, 19 March 2004.
22. C.M. Gray et al., "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use among Health Plan Members: A Cross-Sectional Survey," Effective Clinical Practice 5, no. 2 (2002): 17–22.
23. D.M. Herrick, "Bush versus Kerry on Health Care," Brief Analysis no. 468 (Dallas: National Center for Policy Analysis, 18 March 2004); and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, "Coverage and Cost Impacts of the President’s Health Insurance Tax Credit and Tax Deduction Proposals," Pub. no. 7049 (Menlo Park, Calif.: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2004).
24. G. Bodeker and F. Kronenberg, "A Public Health Agenda for Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine," American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 10 (2002): 1582–1591.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
25. T.J. Wilt et al., "Saw Palmetto Extracts for Treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Systematic Review," Journal of the American Medical Association 280, no. 18 (1998): 1604–1609.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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