You Either Use or You Don’t: Defining and Evaluating the Users of Alternative Medicine

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 7. Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Abstract

Prior research on alternative medicine (CAM) has been limited to evaluating binary indices; a participant was categorized as having used alternative methods or not. However, there are many different types of alternative medicine, as well as differing motivations. This study evaluates the hypothesis that individuals subscribe to different methods of CAM use in patterns that are based on their social conditions, based on Cockerham’s health lifestyle theory. Using the 2012 National Health Interview Survey I conduct a latent class analysis of nine popular alternative medicine practices and find four distinct patterns of use; non-users, physical users, mindful users, and enthusiasts. Then, I perform a multinomial logit model to predict latent class membership from sociodemographic factors. Lastly, I analyzed how the latent classes predicted twelve indices of health lifestyles. The results suggest that alternative medicine users are not systematically the same, nor are they the medical deviants as commonly stereotyped.

Author

• Josey VanOrsdale, University of Nebraska-Lincoln