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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Maria Chao, DrPH, Christine Wade, MPH, and Fredi Kronenberg, PhD. Rosenthal Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, Box 75, New York, NY 10032, 917-509-7763, mtc28@columbia.edu

Immigrants are less likely to utilize conventional health care services regardless of socioeconomic status, health insurance and health status. Underutilization of health care services has been attributed to cultural beliefs and a reliance on traditional home remedies and alternative treatments. Acculturation, a process of adaptation to the values, customs, and attitudes of a new culture, has been hypothesized to increase use of biomedicine and lower use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among immigrants. Few studies have examined the effects of acculturation on the use of CAM in immigrant populations. Based on data from a national multilingual telephone survey conducted in 2001, this study examined acculturation and CAM use among Mexican- and Chinese-American women. We hypothesized that acculturation would be associated with lower use of non-professionalized CAM and higher use of professionalized CAM. Study models included socioeconomic status, health status, health insurance, and access to CAM practitioners. Among Mexican-American women, acculturation was associated with a lower likelihood of using professionalized CAM but was not significantly associated with non-professionalized CAM use. Among Chinese-American women, there was no significant acculturation effect on either type of CAM assessed. The null acculturation findings regarding non-professionalized CAM contradict previous studies and the assumption that immigrants stop using alternative medicine as they become more acculturated. Study findings suggest a need to explore acculturation as a non-linear process. In addition, future research on acculturation and CAM use could explore medical pluralism and the mainstreaming of CAM as contextual factors of immigrants healthcare patterns.

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