Billions Use Traditional Medicine: WHO Pushes to Close Research Funding Gap

The World Health Organization has launched its Global research priorities and agenda for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine 2025–2034 to direct attention and investment towards those questions.

Billions of people turn to traditional, complementary and integrative medicine as part of their health care, but research has struggled to keep pace with its everyday use. Less than 1% of global health research funding goes towards understanding where these approaches are safe, effective and appropriate, leaving patients and governments with important questions that stronger evidence could help answer.

The World Health Organization has launched its Global research priorities and agenda for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine 2025–2034 to direct attention and investment towards those questions. The roadmap arrives as countries face noncommunicable diseases that kill more than 43 million people each year, alongside pressure to make quality health services available to everyone without financial hardship.

Turning Everyday Use Into Reliable Evidence

For someone seeking relief from persistent pain or support during recovery, widespread use of a treatment does not establish whether it works or carries risks. WHO's agenda calls for rigorous research to identify effective approaches, recognise unsafe or ineffective practices and establish whether interventions offer value for patients and health systems. Researchers working in traditional medicine account for just 0.43% of the global health research workforce, illustrating the limited capacity available to answer these questions.

Priority research areas include stroke, mental health, pain, musculoskeletal disorders, cancer, metabolic diseases and reproductive health, with attention to older people, children and preventive care. These priorities identify areas needing investigation; they do not establish that traditional treatments are effective for these conditions. The agenda encourages real-world evidence, digital health tools, systems thinking and responsible use of artificial intelligence to study the complexity of care as people experience it.

Countries Put Money and Institutions Behind Research

Governments had already begun making commitments before the agenda was published, helping shape its priorities around work they were prepared to support. At the Second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in New Delhi in December 2025, 27 Member States announced formal commitments with deadlines for advancing research, creating an early foundation for putting the roadmap into practice.

Tanzania committed a research budget of up to TSh 10 billion by 2030, and Cabo Verde, Malawi, the Federated States of Micronesia and Seychelles each pledged to establish national traditional medicine research centres. India is anchoring a research consortium involving several countries, and Iran is launching a national clinical trials platform. These commitments create opportunities to produce evidence that can guide decisions on regulation, insurance coverage, service delivery and workforce development.

Stronger evidence could help countries determine which interventions deserve a place in health services and which should be avoided, making patient protection central to decisions about expanding access. WHO presents this research investment as part of progress towards universal health coverage, with findings needed to support prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and care that responds to individual needs.

Protecting Knowledge and Making Research Count

Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge holders must participate as genuine research partners, with protections for intellectual property, fair sharing of benefits and respect for cultural integrity. The agenda calls for governance that supports innovation and protects traditional knowledge and data sovereignty, recognising that communities should have a meaningful role in how their knowledge is studied and used.

The roadmap identifies research opportunities connected to antimicrobial resistance, pandemic preparedness, healthy ageing and climate change. Its development drew on analysis of 39,927 research grants across 40 funding schemes, examination of 116 research institutes in 67 countries, consultations with 199 experts from 75 countries and Delphi surveys involving 235 participants worldwide.

The agenda advances the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034, ratified by all 194 Member States in May 2025. With national commitments already in place, its practical value will depend on whether funding and research capacity produce trustworthy findings soon enough to guide the health decisions people and governments are making.