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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Eric Trunnell, PhD, Department of Health Promotion & Education, University of Utah, 1901 E., South Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, 801-581-4462, Eric.Trunnell@health.utah.edu and George White, PhD, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah Public Health Program, 375 Chipeta Way, Suite A, Salt Lake City, UT 84108.

The role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in public health remains ambiguous, in part due to the prevailing biases and skepticism of health care professionals, increasing acceptance by the public, lack of inclusion within curriculum and within prevention and promotion programs, possible harm and potential benefits of use of CAMs approaches, and the different CAMs skills and methods. We will show how CAMs approaches can be expanded to better fit within public health research and education programs by offering five ways that can be instigated to insure success: 1) properly defining pertinent terms in CAMs and public health; 2) use of evidence-based approaches to study the effectiveness of CAMs in prevention and promotion public health programs; 3) an expanded use of CAMs approaches to populations and communities; 4) application of CAMs approaches to different cultures; and 5) an integrated framework of CAMs approaches into public health education. Finally, we will address how and why CAMs approaches might fail or be modified to succeed in different venues. Public health students and professionals need to be trained to exercise critical thinking skills to facilitate skepticism and evaluation of the appropriate studies, meta-analysis and evidence based research studies on CAMs approaches; design and conduct CAMs-public health research programs to establish and extend evidence based studies to include prevention and promotion; have the knowledge and skills necessary to integrate CAMs approaches within conventional treatment, and prevention and promotion programs; and be aware of possible harms and benefits of pursuing a particular CAMs approach.

Learning Objectives:

• To Understand How Complementary and Alternative Medicine Approaches Are Integrated Into Public Health Using Mindfulness and Tai Chi Examples

Keywords: Alternative Medicine/Therapies, Public Health Education and Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered