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U.VA. RESEARCH TRAINING PROGRAM FOR COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE RECEIVES $4.1 MILLION

More than 80 million Americans use unconventional therapies such as acupuncture and herbal remedies, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Yet the safety and effectiveness of many such complementary and alternative therapies remain insufficiently tested in large clinical trials that use strict federal safety rules and human subjects.

As part of its goal to generate more scientifically rigorous tests of new therapies, NIH awarded the University of Virginia School of Nursing's Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies (CSCAT) two grants totaling $4,185,420. The grants are for five years each and will support training for pre- and post-doctoral degree researchers in the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

The first award of $1,538,552 for a CAM Clinical Research Curriculum Program, will expand the existing training program. It will include a new two-year track that prepares doctoral-level nurses, physicians and other health-care providers to conduct clinical research to study the effectiveness of new CAM-related technologies, mechanisms of disease and CAM therapies. The program will use resources of the U.Va. schools of Nursing and Medicine and CSCAT to teach participants the design of clinical research projects, hypothesis development, biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical trial design and legal, cultural, ethical and regulatory issues related to clinical research.

The program also will offer a course on CAM therapies such as acupuncture, chiropractic, therapeutic touch and other treatments that have shown evidence of effectiveness in previous research studies. Participants also will learn scientific writing for publication manuscripts and grant proposals.

The second grant for $2,646,869 will support a two-year Training Program in Complementary and Alternative Medicine for pre- and post-doctoral students in complementary therapies research. The program is a joint effort of CSCAT and the U.Va. schools of Nursing, Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Postdoctoral trainees will take courses at the U.Va. Department of Health Evaluation Sciences, the General Clinical Research Center, the Center for Nursing Research and the Multidisciplinary Training Program in Clinical Investigation. They also will conduct research under the guidance of senior researchers from the collaborating schools. Pre-doctoral trainees will complete professional training at the schools of Medicine or Nursing or the Department of Biomedical Engineering, plus courses in complementary therapies and research training.

People who suffer from pain and chronic diseases could benefit greatly by adding CAM practices that are safe and effective to their current treatments. These awards will help speed identification and evaluation of promising new CAM therapies, said Ann Gill Taylor, R.N., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., professor of nursing, director of CSCAT and principal investigator for both grants. My vision is for U.Va. to become a flagship school for CAM training.

October 19, 2000