Making Connections to Improve Health Outcomes

Abstract

This issue of Global Advances in Health and Medicine sends a vital message about the importance of whole person health. Whole person health rests on the idea that our health involves multiple interconnected factors across physiological systems, as well as biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains. The urgency of better understanding whole person health is highlighted by the current global health crisis. Yet, biomedical research often favors a reductionist approach. The current emphasis on diseases or single organ systems can fall short when it comes to addressing the interconnected factors that contribute to worse health outcomes. This, coupled with a fragmented health care delivery system, contributes to the challenges that patients face every day in becoming healthier. As part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, our role at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is to foster research in this field. NCCIH’s twenty years of research has built a body of knowledge that has established a clear path forward for exploring whole person health in the coming years. Within the framework of our strategic plan, NCCIH is working to build research methods for studying whole person health and explore how this understanding of health can transform the way complementary and integrative health is perceived and implemented within the wider health care delivery system.The collection of papers highlighted in this month’s issue of Global Advances in Health and Medicine sends an important and encouraging signal about the efforts being made to deliver health care in a way that recognizes the importance of whole person health. Each of these studies provides new insights on how stakeholders might approach transforming the delivery of health care, integrating approaches that can improve health outcomes for people.