Traditional medicine in Germany: Definition of terms as a basis for Germany's positioning in the World Health Organisation's Traditional Medicine Strategy
In recognition of the importance of traditional medicine in various cultures around the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched its Traditional Medicine Strategy back in the 1970s. This initiative aims to document and understand the practices of traditional medicine and find ways to integrate them into today's healthcare systems. In addition to preserving and respecting cultural traditions, traditional medicine is also the first or only means of healthcare for a large proportion of the population in many regions. Against the backdrop of the global challenges facing healthcare systems, the WHO has therefore emphasised that these cannot be solved with predominantly westernised biomedicine alone.Traditional medicine is defined by the WHO as ‘sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness’. In Germany, the term traditional medicine is rarely if ever used. Two barriers in particular are recognisable here. Firstly, there is no definition of traditional medicine in Germany and secondly, despite the growing evidence base, there is still a generalised rejection of traditional methods in academic medicine. This project will therefore first systematically analyse how the term coined by the WHO can be defined for German-speaking countries. The aim is also to work out where the course has been set with regard to the term traditional medicine and why it has not been able to establish itself in the debate between conventional and complementary therapies. In a further step, the significance of traditional medicine for the medical system in Germany will be analysed. The aim of the project is to create the basis for positioning Germany in the WHO's Traditional Medicine Strategy and also to stimulate further work on implementing the integrative medicine called for by the WHO.
