Acupuncture Continuing Education

Acupuncture New Millions in USA

Acupuncture MillionsMillions Use AcupunctureThe results from a national acupuncture survey are in. Over 14 million US citizens use or have tried acupuncture. That is a significant jump from the previous survey in 2002 that showed only 8.19 million acupuncture patients in the US. This most recent tabulation was gathered by the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in 2007 and was recently published. The jump from approximately 4 percent of Americans to 6 percent of Americans from 2002 to 2007 indicates an upward trend for the adoption of acupuncture in the USA.

Investigators included experts from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (El Paso, TX), University of Maryland School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD) and the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. The investigators predict a continuation of the upward trend and note that acupuncture patients used it “as a complementary and alternative approach to conventional treatment for a specific health condition, but also used it as a preventive means to promote general health.” The investigators suggest that insurance coverage for acupuncture services, increased awareness and the lower cost of acupuncture care compared with other modalities may contribute to the popularity and growth of acupuncture use in the USA.


Reference:
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 710750, 8 pages. Acupuncture Use among American Adults: What Acupuncture Practitioners Can Learn from National Health Interview Survey 2007? Yan Zhang, Lixing Lao, Haiyan Chen and Rodrigo Ceballos.