Advancing Whole-Person Health through Informatics: A Narrative Review of Knowledge Resources for Complementary and...

Complementary and integrative health (CIH) interventions, including nutritional strategies, are widely used to support whole-person health, yet evidence on their efficacy, safety, and mechanisms remains fragmented.

This narrative review mapped existing CIH knowledge resources, identifies critical gaps, and highlighted challenges in interoperability and integration. We proposed artificial intelligence-driven informatics strategies to standardize, connect, and leverage these resources, with the goal of advancing discovery, precision nutrition, and personalized approaches to health and well-being.

We conducted a narrative review of publicly available knowledge resources on complementary health interventions, focusing on their effectiveness, safety, and biological mechanisms, including the microbiome. Interventions were categorized as nutritional, physical, or psychological. Resources were then classified as knowledge bases, datasets, databases, ontologies, knowledge graphs, platforms, or initiatives, with summaries of their scope, functionality, and contributions.

We identified 47 resources that can support complementary and integrative health informatics (15 knowledge bases, 13 databases, 7 datasets, 4 platforms, 3 initiatives, 3 ontologies, and 2 knowledge graphs). Categories included nutritional interventions (32, with 13 on the microbiome), physical interventions (4), psychological interventions (3), and comprehensive or multimodal resources (7). Most resources (39) were publicly available.

Advancing whole-person health requires greater standardization and integration of knowledge resources, which in turn enables more effective application of artificial intelligence and informatics methods. When well-structured, interoperable resources are coupled with these computational methods, they can unify diverse knowledge domains, advance the science of complementary and integrative health, and accelerate discovery in personalized nutrition.