Page 101 - Cultural Competence in Health Education

Complementary and Alternative Medicine 79

to take an active and leading role in advocating for advancing scientifi c research on
CAM, sharing news and information on emerging CAM practices, and supporting the
integration of proven CAM therapies.
NCCAM provides funding for research centers intended to advance scientifi c
knowledge on alternative and complementary medicine. The budget for NCCAM in
2006 was $ 122.7 million dollars, a significant increase from 1992, when the Offi ce of

Alternative Medicine (OAM) was first created. In 1992, the operating budget for the
OAM was $ 2 million dollars (NCCAM, 2006a).
Twenty - six research centers are currently sponsored by NCCAM. They deal with
such topics as acupuncture, antioxidants, botanicals, phytotherapy, botanical medi-
cine, cancer, chiropractic, bioenergetics, touch therapy, Chinese herbal therapy, mind -
body medicine, osteopathy, and traditional Chinese medicine. The 2006 funding
research priorities of NCCAM include CAM approaches to anxiety and depression;
secondary prevention and management of hypertension, atherosclerosis, and conges-
tive heart failure; ethnomedicine; immune modulation and enhancement; infl amma-
tory bowel syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome; insomnia; liver diseases; obesity
and metabolic syndrome; infectious respiratory diseases; gender health; and health
disparities (NCCAM, 2006b).
NCCAM also offers funding for training and educational programs at the under-
graduate, graduate, and postdoctoral level. The focus of these training opportunities is
the development of culturally competent research and delivery systems for comple-
mentary and alternative medicine.
The health education profession needs to extend its body of knowledge to new
domains such as CAM. Health educators can find CAM research and training opportu-

nities at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

APPLICATION TO HEALTH EDUCATION

Health educators have embraced the concepts promoted by holistic health and integra-
tive healing (Chng et al., 2003). According to Pinzon - P é rez (2005), the practice of
health education is based on a holistic understanding of human life and the multidi-
mensional nature of health. Terms such as holistic health and integrative medicine or
healing are traditional in the health education vocabulary and have become an integral
part of the practice of this profession.
Health educators are defi ned by NCHEC (2002) as practitioners who have scien-
tific training in the design, development, and evaluation of activities that help to

improve the health of all people. The emerging fields of CAM, holistic health, and
integrative healing pose new challenges for health educators in the areas of advocacy,
needs assessment, program planning, and program evaluation. Multiple strategies for
educating the public on CAM, in settings such as schools, communities, health care
facilities, businesses, colleges, and government agencies, will need to be developed.

7/1/08 2:52:01 PM
c04.indd 79
c04.indd 79 7/1/08 2:52:01 PM