It is with pleasure that we announce a Medical Care supplemental issue on complementary and integrative Health (CIH) research in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and military healthcare systems, sponsored by VA Health Services Research and Development Service. This supplement is a follow up to our 2014 Medical Care special issue, “Building the Evidence Base for Complementary and Integrative Medicine Use among Veterans and Military Personnel”, sponsored by VA’s Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation and the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System, which you can read here. Since this time, researching and providing evidence-based CIH therapies has become an VA-wide priority and are mandated by Congress. Many studies have examined the effectiveness of CIH therapies and the larger Whole Health System of Care (WHS), in which CIH is an important component. The WHS is being implemented throughout the VA to facilitate the transformation to a system which empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and well-being through providing care aligned with patients’ personal health goals.In this new supplemental issue, set to be published in September 2020, we seek to move beyond descriptive information on CIH services for Veterans, and instead report on clinical and implementation trials; pragmatic designs, including practice based research and pragmatic clinical trials; robust longitudinal studies; evaluation of system-wide implementation efforts; or any type of design that moves the field forward in terms of providing and evaluating CIH services and approaches to Veterans and active duty military populations.

Submission deadlines have passed.  All manuscripts will be finalized by June 2020 to meet the September 2020 publication date.

Any questions?  Please contact Rani Elwy at rani_elwy@brown.edu or Rani.Elwy@va.gov or Stephanie Taylor at Stephanie.Taylor8@va.gov