This readable overview offers a public health framework for integrating medical and alternative care to improve health outcomes in patients with chronic illnesses. It details the promise, potential, and challenges of holistic services as patients seek diverse treatment options and health care systems address the demand for more affordable, accessible, and effective care. The book's integrative model describes the process in theory and practice, from cost and reimbursement issues and turf wars between providers to expanding on traditional concepts of illness and wellness. Learning objectives, case studies, discussion questions, and other helpful features make this a vital student text.

The book's concentrated coverage:

• Introduces concepts of integrative health services.
• Applies integrative health concepts to public health areas, e.g., prevention.
• Contrasts integrative models of health with the traditional biomedical model.
• Describes health care systems, use, and disparities in integrative health services. Outlines the scope of integrative health practice.
• Reviews implications for the public health workforce.

Integrative Health Services benefits public health students, pre-med students, and those with an interest in health policy and health trends. Additionally, public health educators, practitioners, and scholars who may not be familiar with integrative health services and conflicts related to their increased use in health care will find it a helpful tool to quickly bring them up to date

Autorentext
Heather Mullins-Owens serves as Director of Integrative Health Services at the HERO Network. As adjunct faculty at Indiana University, she teaches graduate students about contemporary managerial ethics. She consults with the Human Subjects Office at Indiana University to ensure regulatory compliance and subject safety in a variety of hematology and oncology clinical trials. Heather also serves on the Clinical Ethics Committee of Eskenazi Health, one of America's five largest safety net hospitals which serve patients regardless of ability to pay for services. In addition, she continues to work as a freelance health, alternative medicine, and ethics writer.

Inhalt
Introduction to Concepts of Health Services.- Application to Public Health.- Health Care System Use and Disparities in Integrative Health Services.- Scope of Practice.- Integrative Health as a Primary Care Model (Case Study).- Public Health Workforce Implications.- Conclusions.