Integrative Medicine and the Social Determinants of Health

This chapter explores the overlap and potential synergies of integrative medicine and preventive medicine in the context of levels of prevention, acknowledging the relative deficiency of research on the effectiveness of practice-based integrative care. The goal of integrative medicine should be to make the widest array of appropriate options available to patients, ultimately blurring the boundaries between conventional care and CAM. Both disciplines should be subject to rigorous scientific inquiry so that interventions that work are systematically distinguished from those that do not. The case is made that responsible use of science and responsiveness to the needs of patients that persist when the data from randomized controlled trials have been exhausted can be reconciled. Integrative medicine is a framework for this reconciliation and, practiced judiciously, offers the promise of better patient outcomes.