Complementary and Alternative Health Care in New Zealand

Published online: 
02 July 2004

Summary

The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health (MACCAH) was established in July 2001 under Section 11 of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 to provide independent advice to the Minister of Health on matters related to complementary and alternative medicine in New Zealand.

The key tasks for the Committee to address during its three-year term were to:

  1. provide information and advice to the Minister on complementary and alternative health care
  2. provide advice on the need, or otherwise, to regulate complementary and alternative health care practitioners in order to protect consumers who use complementary and alternative health care
  3. provide advice on consumer information needs and, in particular, advice on the benefits, risks and costs of complementary and alternative therapies
  4. review overseas evidence-based research, identify priorities for the development of New Zealand evidence-based research on the safety and efficacy of specific complementary and alternative therapies and support the development of guidelines
  5. provide advice on whether, and how, specified complementary and alternative health practitioners should be integrated into the mainstream system
  6. provide advice on how complementary and alternative health care can improve outcomes in the priority areas signalled in the New Zealand Health Strategy.

This document presents the Committee’s final advice to the Minister of Health.

Publishing information

  • Date of publication:
    02 July 2004
  • ISBN:
    Book 0-478-28287-7 , Website 0-478-28288-5
  • HP number:
    3859
  • Citation:
    Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health. 2004. Complementary and Alternative Health Care in New Zealand: Advice to the Minister of Health. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
  • Ordering information:
    Only soft copy available to download
  • Copyright status:

    Owned by the Ministry of Health and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

Back to top