National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

US government

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) · United States

Visit the source site · Audited 2026-10-14

Who pays for it

Congress provided $170.4 million for FY2026; NCCIH also accepts unconditional and conditional research gifts, but its donation page did not list donor identities or totals.

Status: Labeled

NCCIH is a federally funded research center with expert review and examples of reporting mixed results. It accepts conditional research gifts, has variable page-update timing, and faces direct budget and policy exposure, so SafeMomma labels it and corroborates important claims.

How SafeMomma uses it

Cited for complementary-health research and summaries with a visible U.S. government label, a page-date check, and independent corroboration.

The audit

Who controls it: NCCIH says its scientists and outside experts review fact sheets. Its advisory council reviews grant applications and research concepts, but the audit did not establish that the council reviews each health fact sheet.
Money: CRS reports a FY2026 enacted appropriation of $170.4 million, and NCCIH lists $170.3 million for FY2024. NCCIH accepts unconditional gifts and conditional gifts for research areas; its donation page did not list donor names or totals.
Conflict rules: NCCIH's advisory-council materials link to a charter, operating procedures, and conflict materials for special government employees. The reviewed fact-sheet pages did not show page-level financial disclosures for authors or reviewers.
Method: NCCIH says fact sheets use rigorous research and receive in-house scientist and outside expert review. The sampled St. John's wort page cites studies, reports mixed results, and identifies NCCIH or NIMH funding for null trials; no standard evidence-grading scale was visible.
Dates on its pages: NCCIH says update timing varies, and the sampled St. John's wort in-depth page was last updated December 2017.
Political exposure: NCCIH's September 19, 2025 council minutes reported that its communications director and team left in a reduction in force, its planned strategy was on hold, and its website was mostly static apart from occasional updates. The President's FY2027 budget proposes eliminating NCCIH, but the proposal was not enacted as of the audit cutoff; the 2025 site-restoration report did not establish that NCCIH pages were changed.
Money exposure: Federal appropriations are NCCIH's disclosed primary funding source, and conditional gifts can support particular research areas. Donor identities and amounts were not disclosed in the materials reviewed, and no donor-driven fact-sheet change or industry sponsorship was identified.
Track record: NCCIH was not specifically assessed in the five backtests, so no source-specific track-record finding is reported here.

Where this comes from

Incentive exposure describes pressure from money or politics, not whether the source is right. Funding alone does not show influence.

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