Alternative Medicine Fans More Likely To Get Shots

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Alternative Medicine Fans More Likely To Get Shots

By Anne Harding. http://tinyurl.com/3bvjno

Reuters Health - Adults who use alternative or complementary

medicines are more likely to receive recommended vaccinations than

their peers who don't use these products, according to a study by

researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among 30,617 adults participating in the 2002 National Health

Interview Survey, the 36 percent who said they had used complementary

or alternative medicines (CAM) recently were more likely to have

received shots for preventing the flu, pneumococcal infections and

hepatitis B.

Nevertheless, most people the CDC considers " priority "

recipients for the flu and pneumococcal vaccines because of a

high-risk condition didn't get them, Dr. Stokley of the CDC's

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta

and her colleagues found.

Among these priority adults, 44 percent of CAM users had a flu

shot, compared with 38 percent of people who were not CAM users. Forty

percent of priority adults who had used alternative medicine recently

received a pneumococcal vaccine compared with 33 percent of non-users.

All of these differences were statistically significant.

Sixty percent of priority adults who were also alternative

medicine users had received their hepatitis B vaccine compared with 56

percent of non-users, which wasn't a statistically significant difference.

Immunization rates for non-priority study participants were also

higher among CAM than non-CAM users for all three vaccines.

Because parents who are alternative medicine adherents may be

more likely to reject immunization for their children, Stokley noted

in an interview, she and her colleagues expected that adult CAM users

would have a similar reluctance to get vaccinated. But the opposite

was true.

Perhaps, she explained, these adults tend to use CAM as a

complement to their regular medical care rather than a replacement for

it. " We did notice that people who had used CAM in the past 12 months

did make more doctor visits to their other physicians, " Stokley said.

" They may be more engaged with the health care system and they may be

more proactive about preventing illness. "

The findings suggest that it might be possible to increase

vaccine coverage among adults by working with CAM practitioners, the

investigators conclude.

SOURCE: BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, online

February 22, 2008.