Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #122102

Rick Harvey, PhD, Department of Health Education, Institute for Holistic Healing Studies, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132, 415-338-1774, rharvey@sfsu.edu and Adam Burke, PhD, MPH, LAc, Health Education/Institute for Holistic Healing Studies, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132.

Addressing large social problems requires collaboration across disciplinary boundaries—a holistic perspective. NIH Director Elias Zerhouni states that the NIH's new approach is to operate in a more integrative fashion allowing the institutes to address complex issues that no single branch could previously manage due to lack of resources, expertise, or infrastructure. He suggests that such an integration will facilitate knowledge acquisition and translation, transforming the research process and accelerating the translation of research into clinical practice. Disease prevention and health promotion are increasingly being recognized as dynamic systems challenges, which consequently may require holistic solutions. This presentation will describe methods for evaluating effective Interdisciplinary Scientific Collaboration (IDSC), using as an example, observations of a Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) and Active Living Research projects from the University of California, Irvine. Techniques for identifying and overcoming barriers to collaboration are discussed with the intent of informing future health promotion and disease prevention research. Implications for professional development and publishing while working on interdisciplinary teams will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: