whole systems research methodology

[Guest guest]

Spinedocs, OR DCs,

The following is snitched from Weeks’ blog…

A. Simpson, DC

Vice President, Medical Director

Complementary Healthcare Plans

6600 SW 105th

Avenue, Suite 115

Beaverton, OR 97008

503-619-2041

csimpson@...

Tired of whole

person and holistic practices being held to reductive standards that neither

research actual practices nor use measures that reflect what complementary and

integrative clinicians and their patients say they are accomplishing?

If so, you may be intrigued by the roundtable discussion convened by the

editors of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine

(JACM)

in their November 2006 issue. (1) Among the comments was this pithy critique,

by participant Iris

Bell, MD, PhD, of the limits of conventional

research design:

" ... We may or

may not be able to look at causality, and placebo designs are trying to focus

on the specific causal role of a component of an intervention and the outcomes,

and those may or may not be the relevant questions. "

" If it is cost effective to provide a whole system and it's safe to

provide a whole system, it may be reasonable to start there with well-designed

observational studies. "

Political-Economic Issues in Whole Systems Research

Revealed by JACM Roundtable

The Journal

of Alternative and Complementary Medicine convened an

international roundtable to explore the " methodological " challenges

in the whole systems research strategies which respect the whole of what human

beings are. Measuring economic outcomes was recommended by Lewith, MD, PhD, and others.

Percolating through the discussion are suggestions of the extent to which

political-economic biases in the conventional research establishment are

arrayed against whole systems research ever having a meaningful effect on

health care. A political solution involving a focused funding campaign to US Senator Tom Harkin, the Congressional CAM Caucus and the 110th Congress is suggested.