NORTH CAROLINA CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH MONTH
2024
BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, doctors of chiropractic (DC), or chiropractors, are physician-level providers who focus on the whole person in their conservative approach to health care, and have particular expertise in the prevention, care, and rehabilitation of neuromusculoskeletal injuries and conditions; and
WHEREAS, chiropractors are educated in nationally accredited, four-year doctoral graduate school programs through a curriculum that includes a minimum of 4,200 hours of classroom, laboratory, and clinical internship, with the average DC program equivalent in classroom hours to allopathic and osteopathic medical schools; and
WHEREAS, chiropractors are recognized worldwide for their drug-free, pain-relieving, health-enhancing, and injury-prevention services; and
WHEREAS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as one in four patients who receive prescription opioids long-term for non-cancer pain struggle with addiction, and from 1999-2020 more than 260,000 people in the United States died from overdoses involving prescription opioids; and
WHEREAS, with an increase in chronic pain, there has been a simultaneous rise in opioid use, which has been associated with adverse outcomes, including addiction, overdose, and insufficient pain relief; and
WHEREAS, Chiropractic Health Month serves as a reminder to North Carolinians that non-drug treatments for low-back pain provided by chiropractors, such as spinal manipulation, can help to lessen or eliminate the need for riskier, potentially addictive treatments;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ROY COOPER, Governor of the State of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim October, 2024, as “NORTH CAROLINA CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH MONTH” in North Carolina, and commend its observance to all citizens.
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Roy Cooper
Governor
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina at the Capitol in Raleigh this first day of October in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-ninth.