Morehead State University
Use of CAM Therapies Among College Students in Eastern Kentucky: Is There a Relation with Attitudes Toward Science?
Institution
Morehead State University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Wilson Gonzalez- Espada
Abstract
Dietary supplements are pills, capsules, tablets, or liquid products that contain a vitamin, mineral, herb, botanical, amino acid, or other concentrate, metabolite, constituent, or extracts. Although these products are usually marketed using health claims that do not have to be approved or safety-tested by the United States Food and Drug Administration, Americans annually spend 20 billion dollars on these therapies without strong evidence of their effectiveness. The literature on the use of dietary supplements has identified gaps in the knowledge associated with the actual cognitive and affective processes that people go through in deciding whether to use them. This gap is especially large for rural populations, people of low socioeconomic status, and young adults. The aim of this project was to establish whether there is a statistical relationship between use of dietary supplement therapies and the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards science. Our tentative hypothesis is that participants with a better perception of science will be less likely to use dietary supplements because many of these products are not science-based.
Use of CAM Therapies Among College Students in Eastern Kentucky: Is There a Relation with Attitudes Toward Science?
Dietary supplements are pills, capsules, tablets, or liquid products that contain a vitamin, mineral, herb, botanical, amino acid, or other concentrate, metabolite, constituent, or extracts. Although these products are usually marketed using health claims that do not have to be approved or safety-tested by the United States Food and Drug Administration, Americans annually spend 20 billion dollars on these therapies without strong evidence of their effectiveness. The literature on the use of dietary supplements has identified gaps in the knowledge associated with the actual cognitive and affective processes that people go through in deciding whether to use them. This gap is especially large for rural populations, people of low socioeconomic status, and young adults. The aim of this project was to establish whether there is a statistical relationship between use of dietary supplement therapies and the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards science. Our tentative hypothesis is that participants with a better perception of science will be less likely to use dietary supplements because many of these products are not science-based.