An assessment of home remedy use by African Americans

This analysis represents the first national look at family and individual use of home remedies by African Americans. The purpose is to examine home remedy usage by African-American individuals and their families and assess the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and home remedy usage for African-American families and African-American individuals. Using logistic regression, a secondary analysis of the National Survey on Black Americans (NSBA) data (N = 2107) was conducted to examine factors associated with home remedy use. Multivariate analysis indicated that parent's education, importance of religion, living with a grandparent, and living in a rural area were associated with families' use of home remedies. Age, gender, living with a grandparent, education, and geographic region were associated with individual home remedy use. The results of this research may provide insight to health care practitioners in their challenge of appropriately integrating self-care practices (i.e., home remedy use) and the use of the formal health care system among the patients that utilize both "scientific" and "folk" medical systems. When possible, treatment plans should be adapted to consider patients' demographics, health beliefs, and self-care practices. Health care providers should encourage patient and family involvement and dialogue regarding therapeutic approaches. As more information becomes available, health care practitioners will be better able to ascertain the possible health consequences of concurrent usage of home remedies and prescription drug therapies.