Funding the Evidence Base for Naturopathic Medicine and Traditional, Complementary Integrative Medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

Abstract

Patients widely use traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM), yet it is deficient in the research ecosystem and is structurally underfunded. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that less than 1% of global health research funding goes to traditional medicine research and that this lack of investment undermines all efforts to build a robust evidence base. For naturopathic medicine and related TCIM professions, this creates a predictable cycle: limited funding leads to less robust research in the form of systematic reviews and case reports, which is then mislabeled as lack of evidence. A regional Naturopathic Outcomes Registry, supported by clinical practice research networks and artificial intelligence (AI), could help address this gap by tracking patient costs, TCIM care outcomes and insurance payor costs in non-communicable diseases (NCDs).