Most people turn to natural health because it fits their values

Key takeaways

• Reviews of a 1998 national study report that unhappiness with conventional medicine was common but did not predict who used alternative care, while a holistic outlook on health did.
• Pain is a major driver: by 2022, 49.2% of people using approaches such as yoga, massage and acupuncture used them for pain, up from 42.3% in 2002.
• Wellness is the main draw for many practices: more than 90% of people who did yoga in 2012 named a wellness reason, such as disease prevention.
• One large online survey found that “a lot of trust” in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5% to 40.1% between 2020 and 2024, yet doctors remain Americans’ most trusted source of health information.
• Use the “Which reasons are yours?” tool below to sort the reasons pulling you toward natural health from the ones pushing you away from care you may still need.

Early in 1997, a Stanford University researcher named John Astin mailed a health survey to 1,500 Americans chosen at random. Just over 1,000 of them sent it back¹.

He wanted to know why so many people were seeking alternative care.

A common explanation held that people were running away from conventional medicine, out of dissatisfaction or fear of drug side effects. Clinic research did find both complaints². Call them push factors: experiences that drive people away from something.

Astin’s data, as later researchers described them, told a different story. Plenty of people in his survey were unhappy with conventional medicine, but that unhappiness didn’t predict who used alternatives²⁴. Outlook did: a holistic philosophy of health, and values that alternative care seemed to match¹⁴.

That finding appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in May 1998¹. We could not open Astin’s paper itself, so the details here come from a trade-press report published days later and from researchers who summarized his results afterward¹²³⁴.

Nearly three decades later, the picture has more layers. Trust in medical institutions has dropped, pain sends millions looking for options, and social media hands everyone a feed of health advice.

Here is what the research shows about why people turn toward natural health, and a tool to help you understand your own reasons.

The 1998 study that changed the question

Astin compared people who used alternative care with people who didn’t. Users tended to be better educated. They also reported poorer health than non-users, and they held a holistic orientation toward health¹².

One outlook stood out. According to a 2000 review in The Journal of Family Practice, people in Astin’s survey who paired an interest in personal and spiritual growth with a commitment to environmentalism and feminism were twice as likely to choose alternative therapies³.

The review called this group “cultural creatives.” It reported that their outlook predicted use more strongly than either education or health status did³.

Edzard Ernst of the University of Exeter stressed the other half of the result in a 1999 commentary: dissatisfaction with mainstream care was widespread, yet it didn’t separate users from non-users².

Later researchers described Astin’s result as “philosophical congruence”⁴. In plain words, people chose care that fit what they already believed about health. A small 2010 survey of 65 graduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder pointed the same way. Students whose views of health matched complementary care were more likely to use it, while dissatisfaction with conventional medicine showed only a weak link, and only to past use⁴.

Most people add natural care, but few swap

The National Health Interview Survey, a long-running federal survey of American health, asked about reasons directly in 2002. Among adults who used complementary approaches⁵:

• 54.9% believed combining them with conventional treatment would help.
• 50.1% thought it would be interesting to try.
• 27.7% believed conventional treatment would not help.
• 25.8% said a conventional medical professional suggested it.
• 13.2% said conventional treatment was too expensive.

People could pick more than one reason. Two things jump out. The top answer was “together,” not “instead.” And about one user in four had been encouraged by a conventional clinician.

Ernst estimated in 1999 that only about 5% of users relied on complementary medicine as a true replacement for mainstream care².

The same 2002 survey found that women used these approaches more than men: 69.3% versus 54.1%, when prayer for health was counted⁵. Even without prayer, 36.0% of all adults had used some complementary approach in the past year⁵.

Wellness and prevention pull harder than treatment

The 2012 National Health Interview Survey, which included 34,525 adults, asked why people used three popular approaches⁶.

More than 90% of people who did yoga named a wellness reason, such as general wellness or disease prevention⁶⁷. Only a bit more than 15% used it to treat a specific condition⁷. Natural products, meaning dietary supplements other than vitamins and minerals, followed the same pattern: more than 85% of users cited wellness, and more than 40% cited treatment⁶⁷.

Spinal manipulation was the exception. Most people used it for a specific health problem⁷.

What did people say they got? Stress relief topped the yoga list, reported by more than 80% of practitioners. Yoga also seemed to spill over into other habits: close to two-thirds said it got them exercising more consistently, and about 40% said it improved their eating⁶.

Supplement users were far less impressed. Under a quarter said their natural products helped with stress, sleep or emotional well-being⁶.

These are people’s own reports, not trial results. They don’t prove that a practice works. They do show what people are reaching for: feeling well, staying well and building better habits. That is prevention, the oldest promise in natural health.

Pain sends millions looking for options

Pain is the other big driver. Use of at least one of seven approaches, including yoga, meditation, massage, chiropractic care and acupuncture, rose from 19.2% of adults in 2002 to 36.7% in 2022⁸. Among users, the share using them for pain rose from 42.3% to 49.2%⁸.

Meditation became the most used approach, rising from 7.5% of adults to 17.3%. Yoga more than tripled, from 5% to 15.8%⁸.

National Institutes of Health researchers pointed to three likely reasons: better research suggesting some approaches ease pain, their inclusion in clinical guidelines for pain, and wider insurance coverage, such as for acupuncture⁸. In other words, mainstream medicine itself opened some of these doors.

Here push and pull blur together. Someone with chronic back pain may be pulled by a value, such as avoiding drugs when possible, and pushed by a limit, such as treatments that haven’t helped. Ernst noted that people with chronic conditions may try complementary care to leave no option untried². In one study of London rheumatology and orthopedic patients that he cited, 30% named fear of side effects from mainstream drugs as a reason².

Trust in the system fell. Trust in your own clinician held up better.

This is where the story has changed most since 1998.

Researchers led by Roy Perlis of Massachusetts General Hospital surveyed 443,455 adults online in 24 waves from April 2020 to January 2024. The panel wasn’t a random sample, but it was built to match each state’s mix of age, gender, race and ethnicity⁹. The share reporting “a lot of trust” in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5% to 40.1%⁹. Trust was lower among women, adults aged 25 to 64, people with less education or income, Black adults and rural residents⁹.

Asked why, low-trust respondents gave three kinds of answers¹⁰. One was personal: a bad experience of their own or a relative’s. Another was suspicion that financial incentives or outside pressure, including from government, shaped doctors’ advice. The third was discrimination tied to who they are, such as race, gender or sexual identity¹⁰.

The survey couldn’t prove what caused the drop¹⁰.

Gallup sees the same slide. In June 2026, 28% of adults said they had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the U.S. medical system. That was down from 51% in 2020 and lower than any year in Gallup’s published trend back to 1998¹¹.

But the distrust has limits. In an October 2025 Pew Research Center survey, 79% of adults had at least a fair amount of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public’s best interests, down from 89% in April 2020¹². And in KFF polls during 2026, doctors and other health care providers remained the most trusted source of health information, and a large majority trusted their own doctor at least a fair amount¹³.

These numbers look contradictory until you notice that each poll measures something different:

Poll	What people rated	What counted as trust	Result
Perlis team, January 2024	Physicians and hospitals	“A lot of trust”	40.1%9
Gallup, June 2026	The medical system as an institution	A great deal or quite a lot of confidence	28%11
Pew, October 2025	Medical scientists acting in the public’s interest	A great deal or a fair amount of confidence	79%12

The polls differ in two ways. They rate different things: a whole system, the doctors and hospitals in it, or the scientists behind the research. And they set different bars, since “a lot of trust” sounds stronger than “a fair amount” of confidence.

Count only Pew’s top answer, “a great deal,” and the share falls to 29%¹². At that stricter level, the three polls tell a more similar story.

Put together, the pattern is clear. Many people distrust “the system” while keeping faith with a person who knows them. Our companion article, “The frustrations that push people away from doctors are real, and you can push back”, looks at the experiences behind this distrust.

Feeds, friends and fellow patients

Social media now sits between many people and their health choices. In July 2025, 55% of adults told KFF they used social media for health information and advice at least occasionally¹⁴. Yet on every platform, fewer than 10% of users said most of the health information there was trustworthy¹⁴.

So why scroll? In a May 2026 KFF poll, the top “major reason” social media users gave was learning from people with the same condition or similar experiences (36%). Next came wanting immediate information or support (35%)¹⁵.

Access mattered too. Seventeen percent called not having a regular provider, or the cost of seeing one, a major reason, and that share rose to 32% among the uninsured¹⁵.

Those answers echo Astin. People aren’t only collecting facts; they’re looking for others like them. But only 36% of social media users said they checked what they found with a doctor or health professional every time or most of the time¹⁵.

What natural-health values get right

Look again at the reasons people give: preventing illness, feeling well, avoiding unneeded drugs, being heard, belonging to a community, and taking part in their own care. None of these is a fringe value. Few clinicians would argue with any of them.

That’s worth saying plainly, because people drawn to natural health are sometimes treated as if they were simply misinformed. The research doesn’t support that picture. Users in Astin’s study were better educated than non-users, and most users in national surveys combine natural and conventional care rather than choosing one side¹²⁵.

Values have one limit, though. They tell you what you want from your health, but they can’t tell you whether a particular herb, device or diet delivers it. That’s the job of evidence, and it’s why this library rates every practice on the same four-level scale.

Values pick the goal. Evidence picks the tool.

Which reasons are yours? A self-check

Read each row and mark the reasons that fit you. Then look at the next step beside each one.

Your reason	Ask yourself	A good next step
It fits how I see health	Which values matter most: prevention, nature, control, simplicity?	Choose practices that serve those values and check how strong their evidence is
I want to stay well	Am I covering the basics: sleep, movement, food, connection?	Put the basics first, then add extras
I have pain or a condition that isn’t improving	Has a clinician confirmed what’s causing it?	Use natural approaches alongside care, and tell every clinician what you take
I’m worried about drug side effects	Which side effect, and how likely is it for me?	Ask about dose, alternatives and the real size of the risk
I don’t trust the medical system	Is it the system, or one bad visit with one person?	Look for a clinician you do trust, or get a second opinion
I can’t easily get or afford regular care	What would I do with a reliable, affordable option?	See our guide to cutting medical bills before skipping needed care
People like me swear by it	Is this a story, a study or both?	Enjoy the community, and check the claim before you spend money

If most of your marks are pulls, such as values, prevention and community, natural health may simply be a good fit for how you want to live. If most are pushes, such as distrust, cost and side effects, the problem behind them may be worth solving directly, because walking away from care doesn’t make it go away.

What the evidence says

This table rates how well research supports common explanations for why people choose natural health. It does not rate whether any practice works.

Common explanation	What the research shows	Evidence level
People use natural health mainly because they’re angry at doctors	Dissatisfaction was common but did not predict use in a 1998 national study, as later reviews describe it24	Evidence says no, as the main reason
Most users combine natural and conventional care	Top 2002 reason was combining the two; about 5% used it as a true replacement25	Strong evidence
Wellness and prevention drive much of the use	More than 90% of yoga users and more than 85% of natural product users named wellness reasons in 20127	Strong evidence
Pain is a major reason	Nearly half of users in 2022 used these approaches for pain8	Strong evidence
Falling trust in medicine is pushing people toward natural health	Trust fell sharply911; this review found no study linking that drop directly to natural-health use	Not enough evidence
Social media steers health choices	Most adults use it for health information, few trust it, and many want shared experience1415	Promising but early

Questions readers ask

The bottom line

Research since 1998 tells a consistent story. Most people turn to natural health because it fits their values: prevention, feeling well, being heard and taking part in their own care. Pain and frustration play a part, and trust in medical institutions has fallen sharply. Yet most people still blend natural and conventional care, and they still trust their own clinician.

Knowing your reasons helps you choose well. Keep the values that pull you toward natural health. When something is pushing you away from care, look at that problem directly, and let evidence decide which tools serve the goals you care about.

Keep exploring: family disagreements about health.

Related reading

• The frustrations that push people away from doctors are real, and you can push back
• People come to wellness groups for answers and stay for belonging
• What complementary care means, and why the word misleads
• What an influencer is legally required to tell you
• What to say when a doctor isn’t taking you seriously

Sources

1. The Tan Sheet. “Alternative therapy use predicted by higher education, holistic health approach — JAMA.” Pharma Intelligence (Citeline), May 25, 1998, summarizing Astin JA, “Why patients use alternative medicine: results of a national study,” JAMA, May 20, 1998. insights.citeline.com
2. Ernst E. “Complementary medicine: too good to be true?” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1999. journals.sagepub.com
3. Barrett B, Marchand L, Scheder J, et al. “Bridging the gap between conventional and alternative medicine.” The Journal of Family Practice, 2000. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
4. McFadden KL, Hernández TD, Ito TA. “Attitudes Towards Complementary and Alternative Medicine Influence Its Use.” Explore (NY), 2010. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
5. Barnes PM, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin RL. “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002.” Advance Data No. 343, CDC National Center for Health Statistics, 2004. Www.cdc.gov
6. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Americans who practice yoga report better wellness, health behaviors.” NIH press release, November 4, 2015. nccih.nih.gov
7. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Why Do People Use Certain Complementary Approaches?” NCCIH, summarizing Stussman BJ et al., National Health Statistics Reports No. 85, 2015. nccih.nih.gov
8. National Institutes of Health. “NIH analysis reveals a significant rise in use of complementary health approaches, especially for pain management.” NIH news release, January 31, 2024. nih.gov
9. Perlis RH, Ognyanova K, Uslu A, et al. “Trust in Physicians and Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a 50-State Survey of US Adults.” JAMA Network Open, 2024 (abstract). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
10. Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry. “During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Trust in Physicians and Hospitals Plunged.” MGH Psychiatry News, 2024. mghpsychnews.org
11. Gallup. “Confidence in Institutions” topline, June 1–15, 2026. news.gallup.com
12. Pew Research Center. “Trust in Science” survey topline, fielded October 20–26, 2025, released January 2026. pewresearch.org
13. KFF. “Polling on Health Information and Trust.” KFF, 2026. kff.org
14. KFF. “KFF Health Information and Trust Tracking Poll: Health Information and Advice on Social Media.” KFF, August 7, 2025. kff.org
15. KFF. “KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: Use of Social Media and AI For Health Information and Advice.” KFF, June 17, 2026. kff.org