Lifestyle-related chronic disease lies at the heart of the current healthcare crisis in the United States and with it, a large gap between healthcare provider recommendations and sustainable patient action. An allied health professional skilled in the art of behavior change and charged with improving patient engagement and activation is urgently needed.

Today, a critical problem facing the nation’s healthcare system is the prevalence of lifestyle-related chronic diseases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has deemed chronic disease the public health challenge of the 21st century. To that end, the pioneering of a new allied healthcare profession is again underway. The past 10 years have witnessed the birth in rapid expansion of integrative health coaching, which is poised to fill a hole in our current healthcare system and address the need for skilled professionals trained in the science and art of health-related behavior change.

Although sound clinical reasons exist for emphasizing lifestyle intervention in day-to-day medical practice and national clinical guidelines advocate a multifactorial lifestyle approach to chronic disease risk reduction, studies show that physicians often fail to provide adequate counseling on lifestyle management. This observation is not entirely unexpected, given that physicians generally work in an intensely busy environment; typically do not have the time, infrastructure, or resources to focus adequate attention on lifestyle management; and receive little or no compensation for the provision of such preventative services.