Complementary and Alternative Medicine : Challenge and Change

The rapid growth of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) calls into question the limits of what modern medicine can accomplis.

Physicians' attitudes are in transition, and governments are unsure where this increasingly important phenomenon fits into the health care system.

The challenge is to keep pace with the changing ways that people view health and illness, take reposibility for themselves, and incorporate CAM into their health care.

This work brings together North American and European social scientists to identify who uses CAM, why they use it, and how they find out about it.

Presenting research from psychology, sociology, anthropology and public health, they describe the current context of CAM use and provide new models and techniques for understanding its future place in health care.