Helene M. Langevin, M.D.
August 18, 2023

Does health have a spiritual dimension? For many, the answer is yes. As the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) team looks ahead to the development of our next strategic plan, I hope to get a conversation started about how we may thoughtfully include spirituality as one of the domains of research on whole person health.

As we strive to better understand the components of overall health, well need to answer a core question. What are the elements of spiritual health that would be most amenable to research and would interconnect with the biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains that we study?Although it will be challenging to define data elements and research methods related to spirituality, I am encouraged by recent discussions with our Advisory Council on this issue and with our interactions with the Veterans Health Administrations (VHA) Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, which has put spirituality front and center in theirWhole Health patient care model.