Board Approves Scientific Affairs Committee

By Michelle Simon, ND, PhD
Scientific Affairs Committee Chair

In January, the AANP Board of Directors approved the creation of a Scientific Affairs Committee. This committee is advisory to the AANP Board. We have seven members, Ather Ali, ND, MPH, Carlo Calabrese, ND, MPH, Peter D’Adamo, ND, Bill Walter, ND, Heather Zwickey, PhD, Michael Cronin, ND, and me, Michelle Simon, ND, PhD as chair.

Our mission is to support the naturopathic profession by facilitating access to and education about current research on naturopathic medicine and to expand the available body of naturopathic medicine research. We have three areas of focus:

1. Science and Policy - The interface of these disciplines is necessary to support licensing, scope expansion, and insurance and government program inclusion. To support policy we need to help policy makers understand the available research, facilitate its presentation in an accessible location, and update this regularly.


2. Education and Training - We aim to increase the research literacy of our profession for both our existing graduates as well as current students. This may also include increasing the infrastructure or training for ND researchers and contributing to the educational opportunities at the AANP annual conference.


3. Research Facilitation - The science itself: its techniques and objectives. The SAC aims to provide input into determining what types of research, and on what topics, might be good priorities. For example using data mining techniques or bioinformatics, whole practice research, and cost effectiveness research. We might also provide input into what studies or surveys would assist patients or potential patients in their decision-making about naturopathic healthcare. One goal might be to utilize research in order to help differentiate our profession from other healthcare professions.

In May, we provided a one page white paper focused on the cost effectiveness research of our medicine which was presented at the DC Federal Legislative Lobby Day. Watch for more to come from our Scientific Affairs Committee.