Creating Research Capacity in Complementary and Integrative Institutions: Design of the RAND Research Across Complementary and Integrative Health Institutions (REACH) Center

PURPOSE: Complementary and integrative health (CIH) professions educate a distinctive and growing segment of the U.S. health care workforce, including acupuncturists, doctors of chiropractic, and naturopathic physicians. Historically their small, largely private, non-profit educational institutions have faced structural barriers to building sustainable, competitive research programs. Limited access to research infrastructure such as biostatistical and informatics support, grants administration, and experienced mentorship has constrained the ability of CIH academic institutions to successfully compete for research grants and federal funding. This inhibits the ability of those trained in CIH professions to contribute robust evidence relevant to their professional practice and to such current research endeavors as whole person health and health policy. Furthermore, CIH academic institutions are largely tuition dependent. Without grants, research and scholarship are often funded indirectly by student fees. These challenges may also be faced by other family medicine professions trained in small academic centers. INTERVENTIONS: One response to these challenges was the founding of the RAND Center for Collaborative Research in CIH (the RAND Center), which was launched in 2020. This center later received support to become the NIH-funded RAND Research Across Complementary and Integrative Health Institutions (REACH) Center. This article describes the historical context motivating the creation of a multi-institutional, virtual research center; the collaborative process through which it was developed; its organizational structure and guiding principles; and the ways in which it adapts and extends established clinical and translational research infrastructure models to meet the needs of CIH institutions. CONCLUSION: The RAND REACH Center represents a novel, scalable approach to strengthening research capacity, fostering cross-institutional collaboration, and developing the next generation of CIH clinician-scientists.