More than 37% of U.S. households regularly turn to alternative treatments for everything from headaches to diabetes, according to a survey conducted by Thomson Medstat, Ann Arbor, MI, a business of The Thomson Corporation.

Thomson Medstat’s 2006 consumer healthcare survey asked 23,000 adults about their use of alternative medicine and found that:

• 37.2% of U.S. households use some form of alternative medicine. The most common reason was to improve general wellness.
• Alternative medicine use is most prevalent among those with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 and those with post-graduate college degrees.
• 64.1% of respondents said their physicians were aware of their use of alternative medicine.
• 41.9% said at least some of the costs of their alternative treatments were covered by insurance.
• Herbal supplements and massage/chiropractic care were the most commonly used alternative care, followed by mind/body practices, energy therapies and naturopathy.

The study found that affluent, highly educated Americans are driving the growth of the alternative market. Nearly half (49.9%) of households earning more than $100,000 per year sought alternative treatments in the past 12 months. Likewise, 49.6% of those with post-graduate degrees used alternative medicine. At the lower end of the income/education scale, utilization dropped to 30% in households earning $15,000-$24,999 per year and to 18.1% among those without a high school diploma.

Alternative medicines are broadly defined as therapeutic or preventive healthcare practices such as homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine.

For more information on the survey findings, visit www.medstat.com/insights_and_resources/research_briefs_detail.aspx?id=7 00