Most health research to date has been pursued within the confines of scientific disciplines that are guided by their own targeted questions and research strategies. Although useful, such inquiries are inherently limited in advancing understanding the interplay of wide-ranging factors that shape human health. The Oxford Handbook of Integrative Health Science embraces an integrative approach that seeks to put together sociodemographic factors (age, gender, race, socioeconomic status) known to contour rates of morbidity and mortality with psychosocial factors (emotion, cognition, personality, well-being, social connections), behavioral factors (health practices) and stress exposures (caregiving responsibilities, divorce, discrimination) also known to influence health. A further overarching theme is to explicate the biological pathways through which these various effects occur. The biopsychosocial leitmotif that inspires this approach demands new kinds of studies wherein wide-ranging assessments across different domains are assembled on large population samples. The MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) national longitudinal study exemplifies such an integrative study, and all findings presented in this collection draw on MIDUS. The way the study evolved, via collaboration of scientists working across disciplinary lines, and its enthusiastic reception from the scientific community are all part of the larger story told. Embedded within such tales are important advances in the identification of key protective or vulnerability factors: these pave the way for practice and policy initiatives seeking to improve the nation's health.

This volume establishes the discipline of medical ethnomusicology and expresses its broad potential. It also is an expression of a wider paradigm shift of innovative thinking and collaboration that fully embraces both the health sciences and the healing arts.

Stigma leads to poorer health. In The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health, leading scholars identify stigma mechanisms that operate at multiple levels to erode the health of stigmatized individuals and, collectively, produce health disparities. This book provides unique insights concerning the link between stigma and health across various types of stigma and groups.

The Oxford Handbook of Complementary Medicine presents evidence-based information on CAM in an easily accessible form, thereby enabling hospital doctors, GPs, nurses, medical students and other healthcare professionals to competently advise patients about CAM treatments. The book covers definitions, cost, safety, regulation, legal and ethical questions and a range of practical issues, diagnostic techniques, and risk-benefit assessments of CAM modalities. The main part of the book is organised by condition, outlining for each the CAM treatments available, ranked according to level of evidence of effectiveness, followed by a concise clinical bottom line assessing risks and benefits, also in relation to conventional treatment. The information is presented in a concise, matter-of-fact fashion, avoiding the obscure jargon sometimes used in CAM. Many issues surrounding CAM remain controversial and this handbook discusses them openly and critically.

The Oxford Handbook of Research Strategies for Clinical Psychology has recruited some of the field's foremost experts to explicate the essential research strategies currently used across the modern clinical psychology landscape that maximize both scientific rigor and clinical relevance.

Digestive complaints have become increasingly common. Recent statistics show that gastrointestinal complaints account for nearly a third of all visits to primary care doctors and that nearly one in two Americans suffer from digestive disease. Millions more suffer from conditions such as migraine headaches, arthritis, mood disorders, chronic fatigue, asthma, allergies, and menstrual dysfunction, which are all related to a disorder in digestive health. Despite the evidence in support of integrative approaches to treatment and prevention of digestive symptoms, these approaches are largely overlooked in treating gastrointestinal disorders. Rather, treatment plans tend to be exclusively pharmacologically based and have appreciable toxicity. Integrative Gastroenterology, Second edition, is a comprehensive guide to helping health care practitioners understand and appreciate how to manage patients with gastrointestinal conditions integrating conventional and complimentary approaches. This text reviews the latest advances in science and research with regards to the gut microbiome, physiology, and interconnections between the gut and other organ systems. Coverage includes a diverse range of treatment methods, such as probiotics, meditation, massage, yoga, supplements, special diets, energy medicine, homeopathy, and acupuncture, as well as a special section devoted to mind-body medicine in digestive health and disease. In discussing unconventional treatments, the authors address many of the controversies that surround the remedies.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science emphasizes the research and theory most central to modern cognitive science: computational theories of complex human cognition. Additional facets of cognitive science are discussed in the handbook's introductory chapter.