Ourrecent Advisory Council meetingincluded lively discussions on multiple areas within the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) research portfolio, including nutrition and well-being, among others. These exciting areas of research underscore how essential and fruitful NCCIHs two decades of work have been in developing robust methods to support rigorous studies of nonpharmacologic interventions.

Our upcoming workshop on September 2930, Methodological Approaches for Whole Person Research, is an exciting next chapter in our work to navigate the complex challenges in establishing how we ask and answer research questions related towhole person health.

If we look at the broader biomedical research landscape, its easy to see that the research community has long focused on examinations of reductionist questions, breaking complex issues into smaller parts. These studies provide invaluable insights and vital building blocks for scientific knowledge. They also present well-defined pathways for defining study questions and measuring outcomes. However, existing reductionistic research strategies do not always apply easily to more complex topics such as whole person health.