Prayer is Excluded as a Form of Complementary Health Practice by Our Federal Health Agencies

Prayer is no longer considered a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practice by the National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a federal government agency in the Department of Health and Human Services. It was removed in the 2007 timeframe.

Prayer is one of the most common spiritual practices by individuals in the United States, regardless of spiritual or religious orientation. A 2024 Pew Research Center report indicated that 45% of adults in the United States pray daily. Research on the impact of religion and spirituality (R/S) and health demonstrates that practices such as prayer generally impact favorably on wellbeing.

As of the date of this post, the NCCIH website, which was last updated in April 2021, indicates on this image depicted below that Spiritual Practices are a form of Psychological complementary medicine that falls in the category of Mind and Body Practices, yet it fails to acknowledge that prayer is one of those practices and therefore does not measure its use as a CAM practice by Americans.

In 2004, the CDC reported that prayer was the most common form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) used by adults in the U.S.  The data is from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in which NCCIH sponsored questions about the use of various CAM therapies, including prayer. Of those adults who reported using any CAM therapy, 43% indicated they prayed for their own health and 24% reported that they prayed for other’s health. The next highest frequency of any form of CAM therapy reported in this 2004 CDC report was the use of natural products by 19% of adults. Of the 27 types of CAM studied, prayer for health reasons was the most frequently used! (See Graph Below)

Beginning in 2007, and since that time, the NHIS Survey has not included questions about the use of prayer as a CAM as the NCCIH stopped requesting that prayer be included in the survey. Instead of measuring the use of prayer, the survey began to measure the use of “spiritual meditation.”

In a communications to me by the NCCIH Clearinghouse, I was informed that “the literature” (see this one paper they referred to – Is Prayer CAM? ) was an influencing factor in removing prayer from the 2012 NHIS Survey) To me, this paper does not make a good case for excluding prayer as a form of CAM.

Terms and language are important. I contend that most people who align themselves with any religion place a very high value on their practice of prayer to connect with and relate to the God of their religion. Christians, for example, are instructed and encouraged by their sacred text, the Bible, to pray to God and to pray for one another.  By so doing, they are attending to their own spiritual, mental, emotional and physical wellbeing and to the wellbeing of others. Christians do not regard their personal prayer practice as ‘spiritual meditation.’

So, might the exclusion of prayer as a form of CAM by the NCCIH be considered a form of religious discrimination?

It seems preposterous to me that the NCCIH does not recognize prayer as a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)! Their own website indicates that spiritual practices are a form of CAM, and prayer is certainly a spiritual practice. And the 2004 CDC report referenced above demonstrated that prayer was by far the most frequently used form of CAM in the U.S. at that time.

Prayer is a spiritual practice that should be considered as a form of CAM by the NCCIH and it should specifically be listed as such, and it should be added back to future National Health Interview Surveys related to complementary and alternative medicine.

Additionally, the spiritual dimension should be added as a domain of individual wellbeing in the NCCIH’s model of Whole Person Health. It currently is excluded. (Read this post: Is Spirituality a Domain of Whole Person Health?) To exclude it suggests that the spiritual nature of a person does not exist. This exclusion of the spiritual domain of Whole Person Health could also be considered a form of religious discrimination to those who recognize that humans are spiritual beings who live in a physical body.

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