Dr. Helene Langevin, Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), will talk about NCCIH’s mission, the research it supports, the concept of whole person health and how this might provide critical insights and opportunities to expand and build on NCCIH’s current research portfolio.

This webinar will provide important information that is essential to the mission of those interested in Integrative Health and Wellness. The basic and clinical research conducted by NCCIH, along with other Institutes and Centers at NIH, forms the scaffolding for integrative, whole person health.

Please join IHPC to hear from Dr. Langevin about NCCIH's current and future plans, to ask questions, and to share your thoughts and feedback. Whole Person Health is a new concept. Does Whole Person Health focus only on individuals, or does it consider family-based or community-based factors and intervention research?

Dr. Langevin is positioned to serve as an ambassador for integrative health to the other Institutes and Centers of the NIH, helping to broaden their perspectives. This webinar also provides an opportunity to dialogue with Dr. Langevin about this critical role and how our organizations can work together for collective action.

Speaker

Helene Langevin, M.D., was sworn in as director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) on November 26, 2018. Prior to her arrival, she worked at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly based at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Langevin served as director of the Osher Center and professor-in-residence of medicine at Harvard Medical School since 2012. She has also served as a visiting professor of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Burlington.

As NCCIH director, Dr. Langevin oversees the Federal government’s lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. With an annual budget of approximately $142 million, NCCIH funds and conducts research to help answer important scientific and public health questions about natural products, mind and body practices, and pain management.

As the principal investigator of several NIH-funded studies, Dr. Langevin’s research interests have centered around the role of connective tissue in chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms of acupuncture, manual, and movement-based therapies. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of stretching on inflammation resolution mechanisms within connective tissue. She has authored more than 70 original scientific papers and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Langevin received an M.D. degree from McGill University, Montreal. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in neurochemistry at the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit in Cambridge, England, and a residency in internal medicine and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Moderator

Margaret Chesney, PhD is Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and served as director of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine from 2010 to 2015. Prior to returning to UCSF, where she had previously worked as professor-in-residence and co-director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, she was the first Deputy Director of NCCIH from 2003 to 2008, and associate director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland.

With a focus on health promotion and disease prevention, she has served as principal investigator of NIH-funded research studies identifying pathways by which behavioral factors, such as stress, are associated with chronic disease, and testing biopsychosocial interventions to promote health. She has explored the role that individuals and communities can play in the promotion of health and maintenance of optimal well-being across the lifespan, even in the face of serious illness such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. Her current research efforts are particularly focused on the health challenges faced by women, seniors, Veterans and the underserved.

Dr. Chesney has served as president of the Society for Health Psychology, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and American Psychosomatic Society. From 2014 to 2016, she chaired of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health.