Thirty years ago, as she was establishing a new center at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer knew research would need to be a foundational part of it.

“For the Center to develop over the long term and gain legitimacy, we would have to be highly successful in the research world,” says Kreitzer, PhD, RN, FAAN, FNAP, director of the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing.

In the decades since, the Bakken Center has been a leader in demonstrating how its evidence-informed approach to complementary and integrative health can provide new avenues to treating patients dealing with complex and chronic symptoms. The Center was a founding member, for example, of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health, which today includes nearly 80 institutions.  And while many peer centers are set up within a particular college at their respective universities, the Bakken Center was designed from the start to sit at the nexus of many academic disciplines.

“You need a broader perspective than one discipline can offer,” Kreitzer says. “Working within an interdisciplinary environment from a team research perspective is critical to being able to design the types of interventions that are helpful to people.”

The Bakken Center holds community engagement as one of its core tenets. Gone is the old approach to research, where an investigator would come up with a study on their own, sometimes leaving community participants feeling unheard and unsure as to the outcome of the research. Instead, research at the Center starts by asking what the needs of the community are and what approaches could best serve those needs. Community feedback and sharing results are key parts of the process. While its impacts have reached across the globe, Kreitzer is particularly proud of the Center’s impact here in Minnesota.

“We feel a deep obligation on how we improve the health and wellbeing of people here in the state,” Kreitzer says, noting the benefits of that interaction go both ways. “When we engage with the community, that in turn informs our teaching and our research.”

The Center has a track record of successfully competing for federal grant funding, which it relies on to fuel its research. Kreitzer hopes the public will continue to understand the importance not only of funding this research, but of the role it can play in benefiting our health, wellbeing, and quality of life.

Highlights of some of the Center’s most significant studies are below.

Managing Symptoms Post-Transplant

When a patient undergoes a successful organ transplant, their treatment is far from over. Organ recipients can experience a variety of symptoms related to their underlying disease and also to the necessary suppression of their immune system. In the early 2000s, Kreitzer and her colleagues began a National Institutes of Health-funded study to test drug-free methods for treating some of these symptoms.

“There hadn’t been that many studies at that point on mindfulness-based stress reduction,” Kreitzer says. “Solid organ transplant was one of the most high-tech interventions a patient could receive, and it was so intriguing to look at what from the realm of integrative therapies could contribute to outcomes.”

The study brought in a wide range of experts, with specialties in transplant surgery, health economy, psychology, nursing, and other fields. They focused on common quality-of-life symptoms that patients faced after their transplants, including anxiety, depression, and trouble sleeping. The patients attended a mindfulness meditation training program consisting of eight weekly classes.

As a result, they reported reductions in all three symptoms and no side effects, pointing to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction as a relatively inexpensive, safe, and effective community-based program.

Building a Culture of Evidence-Informed Treatment

Like any other healthcare professionals, practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine need to grow and adapt their treatments based on new knowledge to ensure the best outcomes for their patients. Traditionally, not all practitioners in fields like massage therapy, chiropractic medicine, and acupuncture placed a high value on keeping up with evidence-informed research.

In collaboration with Northwestern Health Sciences University, Bakken Center researchers launched a project in 2012 to help individuals and their institutions develop research-related skill sets.

The CAM Practitioner Research Education Partnership, supported by funding from the NIH, helped spark change that has since shaped the professional culture of complementary and alternative medicine professionals and encouraged them to integrate the best available science with their own clinical judgment to best serve the health needs of their patients.

Roni Evans, DC, PhD, said the project was very different from a typical study. Its legacy includes the formation of the Bakken Center’s Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program (IHWRP), which she now directs.

“I think what is most noteworthy about this project was all the ‘trickle-down’ successes,” Evans says. “For example, evidence-informed practice educational modules were shared with other academic institutions across the country and projects were funded because of the partnerships that were forged.”

Drug-Free Approaches to Back Pain

For people with chronic pain, prescription medications can feel like a lifesaver—but they can also be habit-forming, and millions of Americans struggle with addiction to opioids and other medications.

Realizing the need for other, healthy ways to meet patients’ pain management needs, IHWRP researchers launched a project in 2018 to study drug-free approaches for preventing new back pain from turning into a chronic problem. The NIH-funded (PACBACK) project was one of the program’s biggest trials to date, involving 1000 participants.

The study explored approaches like chiropractic care, exercise, behavioral-based self-care, including mind-body approaches like relaxed breathing and guided imagery, as ways to address the physical, mental and social challenges that come with back pain. The goal was to use these approaches to address each patient’s needs and prevent the pain from becoming a longer-term problem. Gert Bronfort, DC, PhD, professor with the IHWRP, led the study in collaboration with researchers at the University of Washington and University of Pittsburgh. Successfully completed in 2024, the study demonstrated that these approaches were helpful, especially when compared to medical care, and should be considered as part of treatment for new back pain.

“This study fills an important gap in the scientific literature regarding the effectiveness of spinal manipulation and clinician-supported self-management treatments for patients at risk of developing chronic disabling back pain,” Bronfort says. “The interventions were tailored to meet patients’ needs, and training was delivered by individual frontline providers versus a multidisciplinary team, reducing barriers related to access and cost.”

Bringing Better Quality of Life to Veterans

Veterans with pain suffer greater disability than those in the general population and often face barriers to accessing complementary therapy options for their pain.

The Learning to Apply Mindfulness to Pain (LAMP) study tested different approaches to making mindfulness more accessible for veterans with chronic pain. The study was led by Diana Burgess, PhD, director of the VA Advanced Fellowship Program in Health Services Research at the Minneapolis VA and professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Members of the Center’s Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program developed the LAMP programs, which included videos led by a mindfulness instructor and group sessions led by VA staff facilitators. Burgess was excited to see patients report a 30% improvement over typical care when it came to how often pain interfered with their daily activities, from physical demands like movement and house chores to social and recreational activities. They also reported reduced issues related to mental and emotional issues that can accompany chronic pain, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and trouble sleeping. These effects didn’t end when the participants finished the courses.

“While the effects of the programs were modest, they were sustained over 12 months—well beyond the completion of the program,” Burgess says. “Even more importantly, the program gave patients the tools, motivation, and confidence that they could manage their chronic pain, 
and a more hopeful outlook.”

Community-First Approach to Research

While back pain affects people of all backgrounds, groups that are marginalized are less likely to receive effective, evidence-based treatments — in part because they are often left out of clinical studies. Community members may hesitate to get involved if they feel their own needs or experiences aren’t recognized, and studies are often set up in a way that makes it hard for them to participate.

Evans and her colleague Brent Leininger, DC, PhD, assistant professor, are leading a community-engaged project to develop and test pain management programs that help participants who identify with a racial or ethnic minority group, and those with lower household incomes. Supported by funding from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the project teaches participants different mind-body approaches to address pain and overall health through activities such as mindfulness, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and exercise.

The research team has partnered with a group of trusted community leaders for help designing recruitment, study, and program materials. They also sought pain sufferers’ views of the new programs in an earlier pilot study. Collectively, this information has helped the researchers broaden their own perspectives, build relationships with community members and organizations, and understand cultural considerations that have helped facilitate the project’s success.

“The most exciting part about the project is the opportunity to conduct trials in a new way that addresses the systemic biases in our research processes so we can remove barriers to participation,” Evans says, noting participants’ high engagement rates suggest they are finding the programs easy to access and helpful. “We have been steeped in discussing what the needs are — and listening, learning, and adapting what we do.”