NCCIH releases new strategic plan for research on whole person health

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) released its new strategic plan, illustrating efforts to research “whole person health,” according to an announcement made by Helene Langevin, MD, director of the NCCIH on Monday.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) was originally created to facilitate the study and evaluation of complementary therapies, Langevin said. Over time, the NCCAM became the NCCIH and incorporated a focus on integrative health research, with the goals of improving care, promoting health, and preventing disease.

The new strategic plan expands on its definition of integrative health to include whole person health, empowering individuals, families, communities, and populations to improve their health in the biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains.

“Advancing research on whole person health will support our focus on promoting and restoring health with complementary and integrative health approaches,” Langevin said in the statement.

The plan has five objectives:

• Advance fundamental science and methods development.
• Advance research on the whole person and on the integration of complementary and conventional care.
• Foster research on health promotion and restoration, resilience, disease prevention, and symptom management.
• Enhance the complementary and integrative health research workforce.
• Provide objective, evidence-based information on complementary and integrative health interventions.

The full plan may be viewed here.