Use of Spiritual Healing Therapy in Relation to Race and Ethnicity

1
Use of Spiritual Healing Therapy in Relation to
Race and Ethnicity

• Catherine Simile, Ph.D. and Hanyu Ni, Ph.D.
• Division of Health Interview Statistics
• National Center for Health Statistics

2
Background

• Increasing trend in the use of Complementary
  and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
• Overall users tend to be women, white, more
  educated, have higher income and be covered by
  health insurance

3
Background--continued

• Reported high use of spiritual healing and prayer
  as one of these modalities
• Unknown relationship between spiritual healing
  and prayer and race and ethnicity

4
Objective

• To examine the utilization of spiritual healing
  and prayer among US adults in relation to race
  and ethnicity

5
Methods

• Data source
• 1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
• Face-to-face interviews

6
Methodscontd

• Response rate
• Household 90
• Sample Adult--70
• 30,801 adults aged 18 and older

7
Measure of Prayer and Spiritual Healing

• Use in past year
• Self-reported
• One of 12 listed CAM therapies and other

8
Question

• People may also use alternative health care
  services.
• Id like to ask you about your use of some
  alternative kinds of therapies and treatments.
  During the past 12 months have you
  used...Spiritual healing or prayer?

9
Other Variables

• Health insurance coverage (y/n)
• General health status
• Race and Ethnicity
• Hispanic
• Non-Hispanic White
• Non-Hispanic Black

10
Other Variables-contd

• Gender
• Region of the country
• Age
• Education
• Income
• Other sociodemographic characteristics

11
Statistical analysis

• Data weighted for population estimates
• Adjusted for non-response
• SUDAAN software used to adjust for cluster sample
  design

12
Characteristics of study subjects by
race/ethnicity
13
Characteristics of study subjects by
race/ethnicity-contd
14
Percent of adults who used 13 types of
complementary and alternative medicine in the
past year United States, 1999
15
Percent of adults who used 13 types of
complementary and alternative medicine in the
past year United States, 1999-contd
16
Percent Using Spiritual Healing or Prayer by
Race/Ethnicity
17
Gender
18
Region of the Country
19
Age
20
Education (years)
21
Family Income
22
Health Insurance
23
Respondent-Reported Health Status
24
Use of Spiritual healing or Prayer in relation to
race/ethnicity Results from logistic regression
Adjusted for age, gender, health insurance
status, education