Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #104447

Dawn M. Upchurch, PhD¹, Adam Burke, PhD, MPH, LAc², Claire Dye, MSPH¹, Laura Chyu, MA¹, and Gail Greendale, MD³. (1) Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health, 650 Charles E. Young Dr., CHS 21-236A, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, 310-794-9391, lchyu@ucla.edu, (2) Health Education/Institute for Holistic Healing Studies, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132, (3) Division of Geriatrics, UCLA Medicine, 2339 PVUB, Box 951867, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1687

Although women are increasingly using complementary and alternative therapies, including acupuncture, a national profile characterizing women who use acupuncture has yet to be described. Moreover, little is known about women's reasons for use or satisfaction with their acupuncture treatment. We analyze data from the recently released 2002 National Health Interview Survey; the data are especially unique because for the first time there is detailed information on CAM use in the national U.S. adult population. Prevalence and patterns of recent acupuncture use are presented as well as reasons and specific conditions for use, overall satisfaction with acupuncture, and perceived effectiveness of acupuncture in treating specific conditions. Regression results are presented for correlates of recent acupuncture use among American women; the domains analyzed are sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle behaviors, and medical conditions and co-morbidities. All analyses are weighted and account for complex sample design. Preliminary results suggest that approximately 4% of American women have ever used acupuncture; slightly over 1% have done so in the past 12 months. Some of the more common conditions for which women sought out acupuncture treatment include back and neck pain, headaches and migraines, arthritis, and emotional conditions. Over a majority of recent users believed acupuncture helped their condition at least somewhat. Public health policy and health care delivery implications are discussed as well as directions for future research.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why a national profile of American women who use acupuncture is important.
• Describe the prevalence and patterns of acupuncture use among women.
• Identify common conditions for seeking acupuncture and describe users’ perceived efficacy of treatment.
• Describe public health policy and health care delivery implications as well as directions for future research.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.