NED Planning Team Member
Michael S. Goldstein
Michael S. Goldstein, PhD, is Professor of Public Health (Community Health Sciences) and Sociology. At the Center he is Co-Principal Investigator and Program Director of CHIS-CAM, the NCI funded follow-up study of CHIS 2001 that examines at the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among California adults, particularly those with cancer and other chronic illnesses. Dr. Goldstein received his Ph.D. from Brown University and has conducted research on a wide array of topics dealing with the behavior of people with chronic illness. At UCLA he teaches graduate-level courses on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and Self-Help and Self-Care. Dr. Goldstein's published research on CAM goes back over twenty-five years when his analysis of the changing relationship of chiropractic and conventional medicine was published in the NEJM. During the late 1980's he conducted a series of studies on the factors that led some conventionally trained M.D.s to become involved with CAM. In the early 1990's Dr. Goldstein conducted research for two years at The Wellness Community, (a support center for people with cancer that is receptive to many forms of CAM) that demonstrated the interaction of both individual and situational factors in determining who benefits and finds satisfaction in such groups. In the mid 1990's Dr. Goldstein was among the very first researchers supported by the Office of Alternative Medicine for his study of patient satisfaction with homeopathic treatment. More recently Dr. Goldstein has collaborated on a study to compare the impact of treatment confidence on pain and disability among patients with low-back pain treated by either physicians or chiropractors. Dr. Goldstein is the author of two books: The Health Movement: Promoting Fitness in America (Macmillan 1992), and Alternative Health Care: Medicine, Miracle or Mirage Temple Univ. 1999). Both seek to understand changes in the way people seek to prevent and respond to serious illnesses like cancer as part of broader social and cultural changes in American society. (msgoldst@ucla.edu, (310) 825-5116)