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Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Naturopathic community clinics: an international cross-sectional survey
BMC Health Services Research, Vol.21(1), pp.1-12
14/08/2021
PMCID: PMC8364026
PMID: 34391427
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Abstract
Background: Globally, naturopathic practitioners offer services in 98 countries, reaching every world region and providing care to diverse populations for a range of acute and chronic health conditions. Community clinics provide free or low-cost healthcare services and play a key role in providing necessary primary healthcare for underprivileged or marginalized populations. However, the reach and impact of naturopathic community clinics (NCCs) has not yet been examined. The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of NCCs around the world, determine the types of services they offer and provide insight into the populations being served.
Methods: Two online cross-sectional surveys were administered using purposive and snowball sampling. A 6-item screening survey was administered first to identify clinics and institutions who fit the criteria for NCC services, followed by a 40-item follow-up survey. Descriptive analysis was conducted using frequencies and means.
Results: The screening survey returned a total of 37 responses from six world regions. Of those respondents who indicated involvement in NCCs, 74% went on to complete the follow-up survey. The majority of the responding NCCs were located in North America (50%), followed by Western Pacific (17%), Europe (10%), Asia (13%), Latin America (7%) and Africa (3%). The vast majority (71%) of the NCCs that have been in operation for more than 10 years are located in North America, while 43% of the NCCs that have been operational less than 5 years are in the Western Pacific Region. 80% of the responding NCCs were affiliated with a naturopathic school. The majority of respondents (76%) mentioned that they aim to serve underserved and/or marginalized populations, with 34% indicating that their target population is low-income families, 21% focusing on serving immigrants and refugees, 21% on serving people experiencing homelessness, 14% on serving Indigenous peoples, 14% on serving those with specific gender differences, 10% on serving seniors and 10% on serving drug users.
Conclusion: The naturopathic profession offers free or significantly low-cost naturopathic services through community clinics around the world. The findings of this survey provide insight into the important role of the naturopathic profession in primary health care and provide rationale for exploring this topic in greater detail.
Details
- Title
- Naturopathic community clinics: an international cross-sectional survey
- Creators
- Iva Lloyd - World Naturopathic FederationSophia Gerontakos - Southern Cross UniversityValentina Cardozo - Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine
- Publication Details
- BMC Health Services Research, Vol.21(1), pp.1-12
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
- Grant note
- No funding was provided to support this research. The World Naturopathic Federation provided funds for the open access publication.
- Identifiers
- 991012968494702368
- Copyright
- © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article