African Americans and Alternative Medicine

CAM or Complimentary and Alternative Medicine have been around centuries but have seen its greatest utilization and growth in the United States in recent decades. This proposes the question what has changed in health care to cause society to turn to alternative therapies that are not even guaranteed to work? CAM's utilization among African Americans has an even shorter history simply because African Americans were not even able to receive equality of health care until the ladder half of the century and still battle prejudice and disparity to this day. Historically African Americans have developed mistrust for the American health care system mainly due to the inhumane acts done during the Tuskegee experiments.

This prompts society to question why would African Americans charter into alternative medicine practices when they already have a negative history with traditional Western Medicine? CAM has had enough of an impact to force the United States health care system to adapt and even include coverage for it. The United States Government was so intrigued by America's rise in the utilization of CAM that they set up a fully funded research center within the NIH. NIH (National Institute of Health) is a recognized leader in health research and now houses the NCCAM (National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine) which determines the validity and efficacy of Alternative treatments. To better understand the CAM's significance to African American Health Care and its future one must simply know what it is and how it emerged, African American's contribution, and most importantly its utilization and relation to African Americans.