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Complementary And Alternative Medicine Use Among Older Urban African Americans: Individual And Neighborhood Associations, Priscilla Ryder, Beverly Wolpert, Denise Orwig, Olivia Carter-Pokras, Sandra Black

Priscilla T. Ryder

Purpose: Older African Americans may be vulnerable to risks due to impaired healthcare access and understudied complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and other traditions. We describe C AM use among older African Americans in Baltimore, MD, examining associations among CAM and sociodemographic, health status, healthcare utilization and neighborhood factors. Methods: Cross sectional telephone survey of 95 African Americans ages ≥60 on use of CAM modalities (herb/home remedies, prayer, group spiritual practices, meditation/visualization, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, relaxation/ biofeedback) in prior year. Results: A large majority (88.4%) reported CAM use in the previous year; 50.5% reported CAM use excluding individual prayer. …