More than 8 in 10 cancer care providers worldwide say they don’t know enough about integrative oncology to confidently recommend it to a patient. Three-quarters aren’t even clear on what it covers.
That’s the finding from a new global study led by researchers at UC Irvine, published in Supportive Care in Cancer — and it puts hard numbers behind something oncology yoga teachers have suspected for years: the biggest obstacle standing between cancer patients and therapies like yoga isn’t the therapy itself. It’s whether the person in front of them ever mentions it.
The Study: “Barriers to recommendation of integrative oncology modalities in supportive care: a MASCC/SIO survey”
Alexandre Chan, professor of clinical pharmacy at UC Irvine and president of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC), led a survey of 282 providers — physicians, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, and complementary-therapy practitioners — spanning more than a dozen world regions. Respondents were drawn from MASCC and the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), meaning these are providers already engaged enough in the field to belong to a professional supportive-care society. Even among that group, the knowledge gap was the single largest barrier identified.
Researchers sorted 27 potential obstacles into four categories — knowledge, finances, logistics, and individual attitudes — and asked providers how much each one got in the way. Knowledge barriers drew majority agreement across the board. Financial barriers followed closely: roughly 80% of providers cited a lack of insurance coverage, and 88% believe their patients simply can’t afford complementary therapies out of pocket. Notably, providers in Europe were more than twice as likely as those in North America to cite provider knowledge as a barrier — a regional gap the researchers say deserves closer study.
As Chan put it: “Providers want to help their patients access these therapies — they just haven’t had the training, the referral pathways or the confidence to do it well. That’s a fixable problem.”
What This Means for Cancer Patients and Survivors
If your oncology team has never mentioned yoga, acupuncture, or other supportive therapies, this study is a reminder that the silence usually isn’t a judgment on whether those therapies work. It’s far more likely that your provider hasn’t had training in integrative oncology, doesn’t have a clear referral pathway, or isn’t confident recommending something outside their usual toolkit — even when they believe it could help.
That means the responsibility often falls on you to ask. A simple question — “Is there an oncology yoga program here, or someone you can refer me to?” — can surface options your care team already has access to but hasn’t raised. Evidence-based, cancer-specific yoga is associated with reduced fatigue, better sleep, lower anxiety and depression, and improved quality of life during and after treatment. It’s worth asking for by name.
What This Means for Yoga Professionals
If you’re a certified oncology yoga teacher, this study gives you language, not just reassurance. When a clinical team hesitates to refer, it’s rarely because they doubt the field — the research shows most providers want to help. What they lack is training, a referral pathway, and confidence in what they’re referring to.
That’s exactly what credentialing is built to solve. When a provider understands that a yoga4cancer certified teacher has completed 75 hours of cancer-specific training — covering contraindications, side effect management, and clinical scope — you stop being “a yoga teacher” in their eyes and become a specialist they can refer to with confidence. Bringing this study into conversations with oncology teams — citing the training, pathway, and confidence framing directly from Chan’s research — is a credible way to open that door.
We wrote about this same referral gap in more detail this past May, in The Yoga Program Nobody Knew About, including a three-level framework for closing it. This new study is independent confirmation, at international scale, that the framework is aimed at the right problem.
yoga4cancer has trained more than 3,000 certified Oncology Yoga teachers across 39 countries. To find a certified teacher near you — or to learn more about bringing Oncology Yoga into your institution — visit yoga4cancer.com/find-a-teacher.
Sources:
- Chan, A. et al. “Confronting global gaps in integrative cancer care knowledge.” Supportive Care in Cancer / UC Irvine News, August 3, 2026. https://news.uci.edu/2026/08/03/confronting-global-gaps-in-integrative-cancer-care-knowledge/
- “The Yoga Program Nobody Knew About — And What It Tells Us About Cancer Care.” yoga4cancer, May 2026. https://yoga4cancer.com/the-yoga-program-nobody-knew-about-and-what-it-tells-us-about-cancer-care/
