Adoption
The Adoption and Spread of Chiropractic Medicine
The increasing interest in alternative forms of care has caught the attention of
several health associations and government agencies. A 1993 study in the New England
Journal of Medicine reported that "The estimated number of visits made in 1990 to
providers of unconventional therapy was greater than the number of visits to all primary
care medical nationwide," and chiropractic was among the most frequently used non-medical
therapies.
A followup report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998
found that the use of non-medical treatments had increased significantly since the
1990 survey, with "overall prevalence of use increased by 25%, total visits by an
estimated 47%, and expenditures on services provided by practitioners of alternative
therapies by an estimated 45%." Of the survey respondents, one in nine (11%) had used
chiropractic care within the previous year.