This report is structured in five parts: national framework for traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM); product regulation; practices and practitioners; the challenges faced by countries; and, finally, the country profiles. Apart from the section on practices and practitioners, the report is consistent with the format of the report of the first global survey in order to provide a useful comparison. The section on practices and practitioners, which covers providers, education and health insurance, is a new section incorporated to reflect the emerging trends in T&CM and to gather new information regarding these topics at a national level. All new information received has been incorporated into individual country profiles and data graphs.

The report captures the three phases of progress made by Member States; that is, before and after the first WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy (1999-2005), from the first global survey to the second global survey (2005-2012) and from the second survey to the most recent timeline (2012-2018).