Subj: NCCAM LAUNCHES REDESIGNED WEB SITE

Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 9:45:56 AM

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NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

National Center for Complementary

and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)

NIH NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Contact:

NCCAM Press Office

(301) 451-8876

NCCAM LAUNCHES REDESIGNED WEB SITE

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)

announces the launch of its newly redesigned Web site, nccam.nih.gov, which

houses an array of information on complementary and alternative medicine

(CAM) practices and research. The site features not only a new architecture

for easier navigation and access to information, but also new content and

links.

With growing attention being paid to the field of CAM, ensuring that

consumers and professionals can easily find up-to-date CAM information is

becoming increasingly important. In the first 4 months of 2002, NCCAM's Web

site logged over 419,000 user sessions. NCCAM's Web site was established in

1998 and has been nationally recognized. It was named by "Yahoo! Internet

Life" magazine as one of the "Top 100 Web Sites" in both 2001 and 2002.

NCCAM's site was recognized for having the "Best Alternative Medical

Information."

"As the lead Federal agency for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

research, an integral part of our mission is to disseminate authoritative

information to the public and professionals," said Stephen E. Straus, M.D.,

NCCAM Director. "The Internet is critical to our efforts, and having an

effective, easy-to-use Web site is one way to ensure that people with

Internet access have accurate and credible CAM information."

The content of the NCCAM site was reorganized so that finding information is

more intuitive. In addition to reorganized content, the site features a

contemporary look emphasizing the connection of science, nature, and CAM

approaches.

To create an effective new Web site, NCCAM recruited representative Web site

users -- consumers, researchers, physicians, and health care practitioners

-- to test the old site and a prototype of the new site. The results of

testing were incorporated into the new design.