Americans Spent $30 Billion Out-of-Pocket on Complementary Health Approaches

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Americans spent $30.2 billion out-of-pocket on complementary health approaches

Federal analysis includes first-ever data on spending for children

Americans spent $30.2 billion―$28.3 billion for adults and $1.9 billion for children—out-of-pocket on complementary health approaches, according to a nationwide survey. These approaches include a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products such as herbal supplements, meditation, chiropractic, and yoga. This amount represents 9.2 percent of all out-of-pocket spending by Americans on health care and 1.1 percent of total health care spending.

Men's Health Is Our Featured Topic This Month

NCCIH Clinical Digest on Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia - This issue of the Digest provides a summary of the current evidence of complementary health approaches that are frequently used for symptoms associated with BPH.
5 Tips: What You Should Know About Complementary Health Approaches for BPH

NCCIH Blog Series Related to the Strategic Plan

NCCIH is publishing a series of blog posts related to the top scientific priorities in our newstrategic plan. The following are the first of these posts:

New Focus on Innovative Clinical Trial Designs By Dr. Wendy Weber on June 21, 2016
Can Complementary and Integrative Health Approaches Improve Health Across the Lifespan? By Dr. Eve Reider on June 16, 2016
Innovative Approaches for Establishing Biological Signatures of Natural Products By Dr. Craig Hopp on June 14, 2016
What Can We Learn by Studying Neurobiological Effects and Mechanisms By Dr. Wen Chen on June 9, 2016
New Priorities for Nonpharmacologic Management of Pain By Dr. Partap Khalsa on June 7, 2016

NCCIH Job Announcement: Program Director for Microbiome Research

NCCIH is seeking candidates for the position of Program Director (Health Scientist Administrator) in the NCCIH Division of Extramural Research (DER). The deadline is 6/30/16.View the job now.

Read Dr. John Williamson’s blog post about the position, Job Opportunity: Program Director for Research on the Gut Microbiome and Its Implications for Health.