CENTER FOR ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN WOMEN'S HEALTH

DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from the applicant's abstract) The focus of this center is women's health. In particular, it will focus initially on 4 problems that affect a large number of women, namely, menopausal hot flashes, fibroids, dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia. The center will identify practitioners in the following 4 program areas who are interested in evaluating their therapies for the women's health problems listed above: 1) Nutrition, Diet and lifestyle/Behavioral Changes; 2) Ethnomedicine Therapies; 3) Mind/Body Therapies; and 4) Structural Manipulations and Energetic Therapies. The center will foster interaction between alternative medicine (AM) and conventional medicine (CM) practitioners and researchers, epidemologists and biostatistians, that leads to the development of diagnostic and treatment evaluation protocols, will train AM practitioners in research methods to evaluate their treatments, and will identify promising AM therapies for hot flashes, fibroids, dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia for which further studies, possibly clinical trails. The above aims will be accomplished through outreach efforts including: networks of AM practitioners reached through advisors and consultants, consortium members, The Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complementary Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, AM electronic discussion groups, and notices in AM publications and at meetings attended by Am practitioners.