A recent major shift in practice by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) now means that complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies such as meditation, yoga and acupuncture are increasingly being offered to VA patients as non-drug approaches for pain management and related conditions, says Elizabeth Evans, an epidemiology researcher in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and a member of the ISSR Scholars network at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

CIH therapies offer a non-pharmacological approach to treat chronic pain, but most of what is known about use of these therapies comes from studies of civilians, she adds. Now, Evans and colleagues at VA centers in California, the RAND Corporation, UCLA, and the Stanford School of Medicine report results of their recent study of CIH use by gender among veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain, and variations in gender differences by race/ethnicity and age.

Read the full press release to learn more about Dr. Evans' important research.