From the Director
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D.
© Paul Fetters, courtesy of HHMI
During my first year as Director, I have been informed and enriched in my thinking about NCCAM's future directions by many conversations with our stakeholders interested in CAM research—including professional groups, patient advocacy organizations, industry representatives, CAM practitioners, members of NCCAM's advisory council, and colleagues at other NIH institutes and centers.
My primary goal is to build the evidence base on CAM therapies. Some of the most important elements, as I see them, are as follows:
- We need more evidence on biological mechanisms. We need to know more about what is going on in the body, from the levels of molecules and cells up to systems and whole organisms, when CAM therapies are utilized. This helps us to make the wisest and safest decisions we can about using them, and it yields important insights into the diseases and conditions under study as well.
- We need expansion of translational tools that help us "translate" discoveries made in the laboratory and real world practices to rigorous research designs. For example, during NCCAM's meditation workshop in July, we discussed that in studies of meditative practices for health purposes, it is important to identify the quantity and quality of the meditation experience. We need more "instruments" (such as innovative questionnaires, biological markers, and computer-based feedback) to address such issues.
- Evidence from efficacy studies—on the ability of a treatment to produce a desired beneficial effect in people—has been important, and it will continue to be so.
- We need evidence from what I call "real world" studies in which, for example, a CAM therapy is studied under the type of "real world" conditions in which it is typically used.
Pain management is an area of research where, I believe, CAM practices have great potential. Chronic pain is a huge burden upon our nation's health, economically and in terms of suffering, and is difficult to manage and treat. We will be studying where CAM could potentially make a difference.
An important part of NCCAM's mission is to develop the kind of evidence that will be useful to the public and health care providers in making health care decisions; to the process of integrative medicine, which is going on all around us; and to health policy makers.
I look forward to informing you of our progress as we move further in these directions.
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D.
