Advancing Research on Whole Person Health Director’s Page Helene M. Langevin, M.D.

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/about/offices/od/director/past-messages/advancing-research-on-whole-person-health?nav=govd At the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), we have been working over the last half-decade to advance the concept of whole person health. From research to health care delivery, our health has historically been compartmentalized by individual conditions, organs, or other biologic systems. In the health care system, this means that co-occurring chronic diseases are usually treated separately. Once these diseases occur, the symptoms of disease progression are managed with medications or surgery, which carry the potential of side effects—too often, leaving important contributing factors unaddressed, such as poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress, and poor sleep. Whole person health inverts this traditional thinking, and instead of treating diseases one at a time, once they occur, it combines psychological, nutritional, and physical interventions and self-care to address the whole person proactively.