Eisenberg is the author of a pair of landmark studies that show increases in the numbers of office visits and the amount of money spent on non-traditional practitioners in the 1990s.
Once considered outside the realm of western medicine, non-traditional therapies have gained popularity with the public and that popularity has put pressure on physicians to study their effects and possible drawbacks.
Dr. Joseph B. Martin, dean of HMS, said in a press release that a main purpose of research into non-traditional therapies is to determine which treatments are effective-and which have risks associated with them.
"We need to evaluate scientifically the effectiveness of these techniques-to assess the current status of our knowledge and determine what we need to do to advance that knowledge," said Martin.
The grant comes from the Bernard Osher Foundation, which was founded by Maine businessman Bernard Osher in 1977.
--Staff Writer Jonathan H. Esensten can be reached at esensten@fas.harvard.edu