The Economic Impact of Whole Person Health

Event Description

As presenter of the 2024 Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary Therapies, Dr. Patricia M. Herman, senior behavioral and social scientist at RAND, will discuss the economics of whole person health and make the case for transforming health care from a disease-centric approach to a whole person model. In her talk, “The Economic Impact of Whole Person Health,” Dr. Herman will explore health and health care utilization for a hypothetical patient over her life from age 40 to 80 years under two care scenarios: conventional care versus a whole person care approach. She will illustrate how an investment beginning in early middle age to support a healthy diet, physical activity, and stress management can plausibly lead to improved health and well-being, as well as reduced health care spending.

Whole person health involves examining interconnections among all organs and systems of the body, as well as the effects of multicomponent interventions across physiological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains. Our conventional approach to health care is disease centric and tends to separate patients’ health by body systems, treating each independently and “efficiently”—e.g., minimal time with a provider, reliance on medication, and little investment to support behavioral and lifestyle improvements. Meanwhile, the United States has the most expensive health care in the world, with some of the worst outcomes.

Dr. Helene M. Langevin, director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), will provide an overview of whole person health and set the stage for Dr. Herman’s presentation. Dr. Herman’s talk will kick off the NCCIH 25th Anniversary Celebration: Exploring the Impact of Whole Person Health. Please register online.

The annual Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary Therapies is presented by NCCIH and supported by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health with a generous gift from Bernard and Barbro Osher.

About the Speaker

Dr. Patricia Herman is a senior behavioral and social scientist at RAND, a co-director of the RAND Research Across Complementary and Integrative Health Institutions (REACH) Center, and a professor of policy analysis at Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research centers on health economics, innovative care models, and overall quality of life. Dr. Herman is a National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health–supported methodologist, resource economist, and licensed naturopathic doctor. For more than 40 years, she has conducted policy and cost-effectiveness analyses concerning water rights, waste recycling, energy and water conservation, and health care.

Dr. Herman’s cost-effectiveness projects include nonpharmacologic therapies for chronic low-back pain, yoga and mindfulness-based stress reduction for low-back pain, tailored navigation for colorectal cancer screening, drug treatment alternatives to prison, implementation support for evidence-based youth programs, and use of complementary therapies in younger veterans with chronic pain.

Dr. Herman has written 3 books, taught more than 100 workshops on economic evaluation methods, and published 2 systematic reviews of economic evaluations of complementary and integrative medicine. She coauthored a commissioned paper on the economics of integrative medicine for the Institute of Medicine’s 2009 Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public and was an invited speaker on that topic at the 2018 National Academies Workshop on the Role of Nonpharmacological Approaches to Pain Management. Other projects include improving measurement of the impact of chronic pain, testing whether conjoint analysis improves behavioral health incorporation into primary care, and estimating the impacts of a statewide smoking ban.

Dr. Herman earned her N.D. from Bastyr University and her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.

Reasonable Accommodation

Individuals who need reasonable accommodations (e.g., sign language interpretation) to participate in this event should contact the NCCIH Clearinghouse at info@nccih.nih.gov or 1-888-644-6226 by Monday, November 25, 2024.

Media

For members of the media interested in covering any NCCIH lecture, please contact the NCCIH press office at 301-496-7790 or nccihpress@mail.nih.gov.