This authoritative collection is the first wide-ranging overview dedicated to traditional, complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) and its scientific study. Compiled by an expert editorial team, it is an essential guide to the vast and ever-growing international literature on TCIM.

Contributions come from practitioners and academics drawn from a diverse range of disciplines and professions across the globe. From perspectives on the significance of TCIM within public health policy to discourses on its influence in fields such as psychiatry and sociology, discrete chapters come together to provide an international map of the contemporary research, key debates and core issues which shape the field.

Carefully structured to ensure easy navigation, the reader is divided into three parts:

- Part A focuses on the consumption of TCIM, including chapters on its use through the life-cycle and within the context of disease and health management

- Part B covers considerations for practitioners across the world, taking in issues over ethics, communication and education

- Part C features chapters on the role of evidence, research and knowledge production in TCIM and looks at what lies ahead for the field

With its thought-provoking insights and suggestions for further reading, this comprehensive resource provides guidance�and inspiration for anyone embarking on study, practice or research within health, nursing or medicine.

JON ADAMS Professor of Public Health at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and holds an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship in CAM and women's health. He is Executive Director of the Network of Researchers in the Public Health of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NORPHCAM) www.norphcam.org and a Senior Fellow of the International Brisbane Initiative at the Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford. Jon is also National Convenor of the 'Evidence, Research and Policy in Complementary Medicine' Special Interest Group at the Public Health Association of Australia, Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journals Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies and BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine as well as Regional Co-Editor for the European Journal of Integrative Medicine.

GAVIN J. ANDREWS Professor at McMaster University, Canada. Gavin was the inaugural Chair of the Department of Health, Aging and Society from 2006-2011. A health geographer and predominantly qualitative researcher, Gavin's wide-ranging interests include the dynamics between space/place and complementary medicine, aging, nursing, specific phobias, fitness, health histories, popular music and primary health care. Much of Gavin's work is positional and considers the development, state-of-the-art and future of his sub-discipline. Gavin's particular interests in complementary medicine include small business entrepreneurship, visualization practices, and the use of music as an everyday practice for wellbeing.

JOANNE BARNES Associate Professor in Herbal Medicines at the School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is an honorary consultant to the World Health Organisation's Uppsala Monitoring Centre and a member of its herbal safety signal review panel. Joanne's research interests broadly include the utilisation, quality, efficacy, safety and pharmacovigilance of complementary medicines, particularly herbal medicinal products, and the roles and experiences of the pharmacist and other stakeholders in the safe and effective use of complementary medicines. Her work bridges the disciplines of pharmacognosy/natural products, pharmacovigilance/pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacy practice/health services research.

ALEX BROOM Associate Professor of Sociology and Australia Research Council Future Fellow at the School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Australia. Alex specialises in the sociology of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) and the sociology of cancer and end-of-life care and he has led sociological studies of TCAM in Australia, the UK, Brazil, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Alex is currently leading a cross-cultural comparative study of medical pluralism in Australia, India and Brazil and a longitudinal qualitative study of end-of-life care in Australia.

PARKER MAGIN General Practitioner and is Senior Lecturer and Director, Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Program, Discipline of General Practice, University of Newcastle, Australia and a Medical Educator, General Practice Training Valley to Coast, Newcastle, Australia. Parker is also a Key Collaborator with the Network of Researchers in the Public Health of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NORPHCAM), an Affiliated Researcher with the Brain and Mental Health Program, Hunter Medical Research Institute, and a Member of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Standing Committee - Research.