Cochrane is an international nonprofit organization with the mission to improve health-related decisions by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews. The Complementary Medicine Field is the Cochrane group that is focused on supporting the production and dissemination of Cochrane systematic reviews of complementary and integrative medicine therapies. The Field is based within and sponsored by the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, under the direction of Brian Berman, who co-founded the Field in 1996. Over the past 20 years, the Field has been supported through an R24 grant from NCCIH. The Field has used this R24 grant to significantly advance NCCIH's objective to develop and disseminate the ?current best evidence? on complementary and integrative health to support decision-making on the part of patients, health care practitioners, policy makers, and research administrators. However, many questions about the usefulness and safety of complementary therapies do not yet have relevant, up-to-date, and actionable answers, and there is a need to continue the rigorous development, effective dissemination, and incorporation into practice of high quality, objective information on complementary and integrative therapies. To further expand the Complementary Medicine Field as a resource for research, this proposed renewal of our R24 grant has the following 4 specific aims: 1) Improve and increase the database of controlled trials of complementary medicine interventions; 2) Increase the number of high quality, high priority, up-to-date systematic reviews in complementary medicine; 3) Increase the relevance, usability and accessibility of the Complementary Medicine Field resources and research evidence to patient, clinical, and research stakeholders; and 4) Promote international collaboration by contributing to the Cochrane organization. Since its founding, the Field has displayed a high level of productivity in our trial database development, systematic review production, and methodological work. The Field will continue its productivity in these areas and increase effective prioritization and knowledge translation of its products, supported by the Cochrane research and dissemination infrastructure and the worldwide complementary medicine network developed by the Field over the previous 20 years.
RELEVANCE Systematic reviews of controlled trials are considered the gold standard for evaluating the effectiveness of healthcare interventions, including complementary and integrative therapies (CAM). The availability of relevant controlled trials is crucial for the conduct of these systematic reviews, and Cochrane has been in the vanguard of controlled trial database development and systematic review methods since 1992.1-3 This grant will support the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field in developing and expanding our database of CAM controlled trials and in preparing and disseminating high priority, high quality CAM systematic reviews.
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