Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Nov;40(15):3800-3803.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-025-09620-5. Epub 2025 May 20.

The Use of Complementary Health Approaches Among U.S. Veterans from 2002 to 2022: a Prevalence and Sex-Stratified Analysis

McKenzie Watson  1 , Zhi Chen  2 , Kaushal B Nanavati  3 , Jamie L Romeiser  4
Affiliations

The Use of Complementary Health Approaches Among U.S. Veterans from 2002 to 2022: a Prevalence and Sex-Stratified Analysis

McKenzie Watson et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2025 Nov.
No abstract available

Keywords: complementary health approaches; complementary medicine; integrative medicine; veterans; whole health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics Statement: All data are available to the public and de-identified, and therefore do not meet the definition of human subject research. This project was exempt from IRB review. Conflict of Interest: The authors do not have any conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Complementary health approach use among veterans. Legend: Age and sex standardized prevalence estimates are presented for 2002 and 2022 for all veterans, and by sex. Cochran-Mantel–Haenszel tests (examining change by year while controlling for age) found significant differences in prevalence for all complementary health approaches (p < 0.05), with the exception of acupuncture in men and acupuncture in women.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Change in Veteran use of complementary health approaches. Legend: Relative and absolute changes were calculated from 2002 to 2022 for all veterans, and by sex.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Betancourt JA, Granados PS, Pacheco GJ, et al. Exploring health outcomes for U.S. Veterans compared to Non-Veterans from 2003 to 2019. Healthcare (Basel). 2021;9(5):604. 10.3390/healthcare9050604. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Taylor SL, Gelman HM, DeFaccio R, et al. We built it, but did they come: Veterans’ use of VA healthcare system-provided complementary and integrative health approaches. J Gen Intern Med. 2023;38(4):905-912. 10.1007/s11606-022-07889-4. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Evans EA, Herman PM, Washington DL, et al. Gender differences in use of complementary and integrative health by U.S. Military Veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Womens Health Issues. 2018;28(5):379-386. 10.1016/j.whi.2018.07.003. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nahin RL, Rhee A, Stussman B. Use of complementary health approaches overall and for pain management by US adults. JAMA. 2024;331(7):613-615. 10.1001/jama.2023.26775. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boersma P, Cohen RA, Zelaya CE, Moy E. Multiple chronic conditions among Veterans and Nonveterans: United State, 2015-2018. National Center for Health Statistics. 2021;153. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr153-508.pdf. Accessed 20 February 2025. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources