Online sources of health-related traditional knowledge: content for a traditional medicine library

Abstract

Objective

To map digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, including databases, repositories, libraries and web portals providing access to traditional knowledge, research or policy information.

Methods

We undertook a rapid review of publications related to digital resources on traditional medicine. We also surveyed specialists in traditional medicine for referrals to digital resources. We searched PubMed®, Embase, the Virtual Health Library of the Pan American Health Organization and Google. Eligible resources were digital platforms indexing traditional medicine knowledge, research or policy. From the publications identified, we retrieved relevant digital resources and extracted data on their scope, content and geographic distribution.

Findings

From 102 studies, we identified 358 potentially relevant digital resources on traditional medicine across all regions of the World Health Organization (WHO). We included 125 of these resources in our inventory of traditional medicine digital resources. The Western Pacific Region accounted for 36% (45/125) of the resources, led by China with 34 resources, and the Americas accounted for 24% (30/125) of the resources, with 24 resources from the United States of America. Most digital resources focused on pharmacological or clinical applications; only five addressed Indigenous medicine.

Conclusion

Digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine are diverse but fragmented. Codified systems are predominant while Indigenous traditions are marginalized. WHO’s Traditional Medicine Global Library offers an opportunity to correct these imbalances by creating an inclusive, ethically governed platform that safeguards knowledge systems and supports their equitable integration into global health.

Introduction

In 2015, government leaders committed to fostering prosperity and sustainability by adopting the sustainable development goals.¹ Health is a cornerstone of sustainable development, with universal access to good-quality health services essential to achieving the highest standard of health for all. The universal health coverage (UHC) service coverage index, which is a score from 0 to 100 that tracks progress towards UHC, increased significantly from 44.6 in 2000 to 68 in 2021.² However, many countries continue to face challenges in bridging the coverage gap to offer consistent and equitable high-quality services.³

In this context, a considerable portion of the global population depends on traditional health practices, either as their main form of health care or as a complement to conventional biomedicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the term traditional medicine as an umbrella concept encompassing traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, and we have used this term similarly in our review. Among the 179 WHO Member States providing information for the WHO global report on traditional and complementary medicine 2019, 170 have reported the use of some form of traditional medicine among their population.⁴ Thus, identifying safe, effective and culturally appropriate traditional medicine practices could play an important role in advancing health for all. Furthermore, biodiversity and traditional knowledge are important to pharmaceutical development, with about 40% of existing drugs derived from natural sources. Scientific discovery and bioprospecting informed by traditional knowledge have led to the development of new treatments, such as quinine, artemisinin and many others, highlighting the potential of this combined approach.⁵

With the progressive digital transformation of our societies, digital resources of traditional knowledge and scientific evidence related to traditional health practices become essential for equitable access to this knowledge and to maximize their contribution to global health and well-being. The Virtual Health Library on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine,⁶ a digital library for scientific and technical information focusing on the WHO Americas Region, and the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library,⁷ a digital repository of Indian traditional knowledge, are well-known examples of such digital resources. These databases serve as valuable repositories of traditional knowledge and related scientific information as well as tools for safeguarding the rights of Indigenous communities and nations. In particular, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library is safeguarding knowledge by establishing prior art (publicly available evidence before a patent filing date) to prevent misappropriation and biopiracy. In response to requests from Member States, WHO is developing a comprehensive database and knowledge platform that brings together scientific evidence and documented traditional medical knowledge, that is, the WHO Traditional Medicine Global Library.⁸

This library addresses the need for a unified, inclusive platform to overcome the fragmentation, regional disparities and narrow range of topics that currently characterize digital resources on traditional medicine. While many existing databases focus mainly on pharmacological knowledge or codified systems, the Traditional Medicine Global Library aims to consolidate different forms of documented knowledge (scientific, technical, experiential and Indigenous) into a single, accessible resource. The library is designed to serve policy-makers, researchers, health workers, practitioners, educators and community stakeholders, and support regulation, evidence-informed practice, education and ethical use of traditional knowledge. Furthermore, the library seeks to enhance global knowledge equity by promoting the visibility of underrepresented regions and knowledge traditions in the health sciences.

We present the findings of a rapid review of existing digital resources related to traditional medicine and provide an inventory of relevant platforms. For the purposes of this study, traditional medicine digital resources are defined as online databases, digital knowledge repositories, digital libraries, searchable web portals and other internet-based platforms that provide access to knowledge, scientific literature and technical or policy-related information on traditional medicine. The findings of this review, integrated with an incremental and participatory development process, will support the continuous development and implementation of the Traditional Medicine Global Library. The review aims not only to map the current landscape of digital resources on traditional medicine but also to contribute to the ethical, technical and conceptual foundations of this library.

Methods

We used rapid review methods⁹ and a survey of specialists in traditional medicine to help identify existing digital resources in this field.

Rapid literature review

We developed an adaptation of a rapid review of the literature to identify traditional medicine digital resources, as this type of evidence synthesis provides timely information to decision-makers (e.g. health-care planners, health workers, policy-makers and patients).^10,11 The protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework.¹² The review began in February 2024 and ended by October 2024.

The guiding question was, “What are the digital databases, repositories, platforms and libraries on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine across the world?”

Literature search

We searched PubMed®, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) Virtual Health Library and Embase for articles on digital resources related to traditional medicine (that is, online databases, digital knowledge repositories, digital libraries, searchable web portals and other internet-based platforms that provide access to knowledge, scientific research, and technical and policy information relevant to traditional medicine). We also made a manual search on Google (Google LLC, Mountain View, United States of America) to identify additional traditional medicine resources and other related specialized databases or repositories. We did not apply any language restrictions, and the search strategy is outlined in the protocol and included in the online repository.¹³ The search terms included combinations such as: database OR databases OR “base de datos” OR “base de dados”; repository OR repositories OR repositorio OR repositories; “information system” OR “sistemas de informacion” OR “sistemas de informacao”; “digital library” OR “virtual library” OR “biblioteca digital”; and “digital catalog” OR “online catalog” OR “electronic catalog.” We used automated language tools, complemented by manual checks to ensure accuracy, to translate studies not in English, Spanish or Portuguese. We imported all studies identified into the reference manager software Rayyan¹⁴ to remove duplicates and select studies between 26 February 2024 and 10 March 2024.

Study selection and data extraction

We included studies focused on digital resources that index resource collections relevant to traditional medicine, including their application to health, well-being, policy and practice. We excluded nonrelevant resources, including resources outside health and websites serving only as portals without a structured database or search function. Four authors independently undertook study selection in parallel using Rayyan.¹⁴ We resolved disagreements by consensus in pairs. We did not use automation tools for screening and selection, and manually excluded all studies.

During full-text evaluation, three authors independently accessed each digital resource mentioned in the retrieved studies and extracted information using a standardized form that captured: resource name; website; description; type of database; type of indexed data; type of traditional medicine; specific area of traditional medicine; WHO region; country of origin; access model; language; and reference(s) where resources were identified. Based on the reviewers’ evaluations, we included only accessible databases. A full list of included and excluded studies is available in the online repository.¹³

Three authors qualitatively analysed and aggregated the extracted data,¹⁵ which another author then revised.

Database referral survey

To identify additional digital resources for traditional medicine as part of Traditional Medicine Global Library co-production, we also developed and implemented an online survey (online repository),¹³ requesting specialists in traditional medicine to submit any resources being used globally in the field. We added studies provided by specialists until April 2025.

Results

The search retrieved 1112 results. After excluding 71 duplicates, we formally screened 1041 records for title and abstract against eligibility criteria. We retrieved and assessed the full text of 254 articles and excluded 179 studies. Other methods led to the identification, retrieval and assessment of two additional studies (Fig. 1). These 77 (75 + 2) studies enabled us to identify 358 potentially relevant digital resources. Information from experts and Google manual search provided another 37 digital resources. After removing duplicates and excluding noneligible digital resources, we included 125 digital resources in the inventory of traditional medicine digital resources (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1.

Flowchart of the selection of studies for identifying digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

Fig. 2.

Flowchart of the selection of digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

We analysed and categorized the included digital resources based on their primary function(s), scope and geographic distribution.¹⁶ Of the 125 digital resources included, 71 (57%) were pharmacology or phytochemical databases; 35 (28%) were bibliographic databases; nine (7%) were digital libraries; five (4%) were compendia; and five (4%) were digital repositories. Table 1 summarizes the global distribution of the identified digital resources on traditional medicine. The WHO Western Pacific Region accounted for 36% (45/125) of the resources; followed by 24% (30/125) for the Americas Region; 18% (23/125) for the South-East Asia Region; 18% (22/125) for the European Region; and 2% (2/125) each for the Eastern Mediterranean Region and African Region. Only five digital resources were dedicated to Indigenous medicine from regions outside Asia.

Table 1. Geographical distribution of digital resources for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine.

WHO region	No. of digital resources (%) (n = 125)	Countries (no. of resources)
Africa	2 (2)	Ethiopia (1), South Africa (1)
Americas	30 (24)	Brazil (3), Canada (1), countries in Region of the Americas (2),a United States (24)
South-East Asia	23 (18)	Bangladesh (1), India (20), Thailand (2)
Europe	22 (18)	Belgium (1), Germany (13), Norway (1), Romania (1), Russian Federation (1), Spain (2), Switzerland (1), United Kingdom (3)
Eastern Mediterranean	3 (2)	Egypt (1), Iran (Islamic Republic of) (1), Pakistan (1)
Western Pacific	45 (36)	Australia (1), China (34), Japan (3), Malaysia (1), New Zealand (1), Philippines (1), Republic of Korea (2), Singapore (1), Viet Nam (1)

WHO: World Health Organization.

^a These databases focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Note: percentages do not sum to 100% due to rounding.

As for countries, 27% (34/125) of traditional medicine digital resources were from China; 19% (24/125) from the United States;16% (20/125) from India; 10% (12/125) from Germany; and 2% (3/125) each from Brazil, Japan and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Several countries had two digital resources (Republic of Korea, Spain and Thailand); or one digital resource (Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and Viet Nam; Table 2). Fig. 3 shows the topics of traditional medicine covered in the digital resources with some digital resources covering more than one topic. Medicinal plants constitute 38% (47/125), the largest category, followed by 19% (24/125) for traditional Chinese medicine and 17% (21/125) for natural products. Only 5% (6/125) of the digital resources supported general or cross-disciplinary traditional medicine research. A wide range of systems and practices constitute smaller proportions, including integrative oncology, Indigenous medicine, homeopathy, Ayurveda, dietary supplements and various national traditional medicine systems.

Table 2. Distribution of digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, by country and topic.

Country or region	Digital resources, no.	Traditional medicine	Indigenous medicine	Complementary and integrative medicine therapies
Country
Australia	1	NF	NF	Chiropractic17
Bangladesh	1	Medicinal plants18	Indigenous knowledge19	NF
Belgium	1	Medicinal plants20	NF	NF
Brazil	3	NF	Indigenous knowledge21	Homeopathy;22 natural products23
Canada	1	NF	NF	Integrative oncology24
China	34	Medicinal plants;25–39 traditional Chinese medicines;25,28,29,40–55 traditional medicine56	NF	Integrative oncology;26 natural products34,36,57
Egypt	1	Medicinal plants58	NF	NF
Ethiopia	1	Medicinal plants59	NF	NF
Germany	12	Traditional Chinese medicines;60 Unani medicine;61 medicinal plants62	NF	Art therapy;63 homeopathy;64–66 complementary and integrative medicine;67 natural products;68,69 osteopathy;70 holistic medicine71
India	20	Ayurveda;7,72–75 Ayush;7,76,77 medicinal plants;7,72,77–87 Unani medicine7	NF	Integrative oncology;88 natural products7,88–90
Iran (Islamic Republic of)	1	Iranian traditional medicine91	NF	Natural products91
Japan	3	Kampo medicine92–94	NF	NF
Malaysia	1	Traditional medicine95	NF	Complementary and integrative medicine95
New Zealand	1	NF	Indigenous knowledge96	NF
Norway	1	NF	NF	Integrative oncology97
Pakistan	1	Medicinal plants98	NF	NF
Philippines	1	Traditional knowledge99	NF	NF
Republic of Korea	2	Medicinal plants;100 traditional Korean medicine;100,101 traditional Chinese medicine;100 traditional Japanese medicine100	NF	NF
Romania	1	Medicinal plants102	NF	NF
Russian Federation	1	Medicinal plants103	NF	NF
Singapore	1	Traditional Chinese medicine;104	NF	NF
South Africa	1	Medicinal plants105	NF	Natural products105
Spain	2	Medicinal plants106	NF	Natural products107
Switzerland	1	NF	NF	Anthroposophic medicine108
Thailand	2	Medicinal plants;109,110 traditional Thai medicines110	NF	NF
United Kingdom	3	NF	NF	Acupuncture111; homeopathy;112 yoga113
United States	24	Medicinal plants;114–118 traditional Chinese medicines;119,120 traditional medicine121	Indigenous knowledge 122,123	Anthroposophic medicine124; complementary and integrative medicine;121,125,126 dietary supplements;114,117,118,126–130 holistic medicine and therapies; 141 integrative oncology;114,131 natural products;117,118,126,131–135 osteopathic medicine136
Viet Nam	1	Medicinal plants;137 traditional Vietnamese medicines137	NF	NF
Region
Americasa	2	Medicinal plants;138 traditional medicine139	NF	Complementary and integrative medicine139

NF: none found.

^a Databases focus on Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Fig. 3.

Topic distribution of 125 digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

AYUSH: ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and homeopathy (plus Sowa-Rigpa).

Note: anthroposophic medicine is a holistic system of medicine combining conventional medicine with spiritual insights; Kampo medicine is traditional Japanese medicine; and Unani medicine is Persian–Arabic traditional medicine. Some digital resources cover more than one topic.

We further categorized the traditional medicine digital resources (Table 2) based on their primary functions. Most resources (53%; 66/125) focused on clinical applications of traditional remedies, including prescriptions, formulations doses, therapeutic uses and drug–herb interactions. An additional 24% (30/125) related to pharmacological research, such as mechanisms of action peptides, targets, formulas and active ingredients for disease treatment; while 20% (25/125) concentrated on component analysis, such as chemical components, structures, compound names, phytochemicals and natural properties. A few sources (3%; 4/125) focused on general research, that is, broad resources supporting general research related to traditional medicine without a specific focus.

The full inventory of the 125 digital resources on traditional medicine identified are presented in Table 3 (available at: https://www.who.int/publications/journals/bulletin). The table gives each platform’s name and bibliographic reference(s) that led to its identification, the traditional medicine area(s) covered, country of origin, brief description, access model (free, log-in restricted or payment required) and primary language(s). We found that the global digital landscape on traditional medicine was heterogenous, ranging from large, well-established pharmacology and medicinal-plant databases and codified systems (for example, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, Unani, Kampo and Korean medicine) to smaller thematic or population-specific repositories, including a limited number focused on Indigenous knowledge. We also found wide variation in accessibility and linguistic coverage, with many resources openly available and several offering multilingual interfaces, while a smaller number of resources requires subscription or institutional login. Additional information on the digital resources included and the full list of excluded resources with reason for exclusion are available in the online repository.¹³

Table 3. Inventory of 125 digital resources on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, as of 28 February 2025.

Name	Topic of traditional medicine	Country or area	Description	Access	Language
About Herbs Database114	Medicinal plants; dietary supplements; integrative oncology	United States	A database on common use of herbs and other dietary supplements focused on cancer care, for the public and health-care professionals	Free	English
AcuTrials®119,140	Traditional Chinese medicine	United States	A comprehensive collection of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews of acupuncture published in English	Free	English
Alt HealthWatch141	Holistic medicine and therapies	United States	Full-text health research database focused on complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness, offering information on the evolving practice of holistic medicine and therapies	Payment required	English
Allied and Complementary Medicine Database125,142,143	Complementary and integrative medicine	United States	Designed for physicians, therapists, medical researchers, historians and clinicians looking to learn more about alternative and allied therapies and related subjects	Payment required	English
AMMPDB: Anti Mtb Medicinal Plants Database72,144	Medicinal plants; Ayurveda	India	The database provides traditional and phytochemical data related to Indian medicinal plants that have anti-tuberculosis properties reported in Ayurveda	Free	English
ANPDB: African Natural Products Database68,145	Natural products	Germany	A database of natural products isolated from native organisms in Africa, with data on 6515 compounds from 1042 source organisms, mainly plants, with some microorganisms, animals, and marine sources. The names and molecular structures of the compounds, their biological activities and modes of action are given	Free	English
AnthroMed124	Anthroposophic medicine	United States	Repository for articles, audio material and videos relating to Anthroposophic medicine	Free	English
Antimicrobial Peptide Database (APD)132,145	Natural products	United States	A database on antimicrobial peptides with discovery timeline, glossary, nomenclature, classification, structure, function, information search, prediction, design and statistics	Free	English
AromaDb78,146	Medicinal plants	India	Electronic library of aroma molecules of medicinal and aromatic plant origin, with comprehensive information on aroma plants, varieties, accessions, chemotypes, essential oils yields, chromatograms, major and minor compounds, structural elucidation data, structural data of volatile molecules, and biological pathways	Free	English
ARTHEDATA63,143	Art therapy	Germany	A database of literature specific to art therapy, such as monographs, catalogues, essays, abstracts and journal articles	Free	English; German
Arzneipflanzenlexikon62,147	Medicinal plants	Germany	A structured compilation of 180 medicinal plants used in herbal medicines (phytopharmaceuticals) as active ingredients, including information on the medical use of the drugs, such as indications, dosage, side-effects, interactions and warnings	Free	English; German
AntiViral Phyto Chemical Database (AVPCD)98,148	Medicinal plants	Pakistan	Comprehensive resource for viral disease researchers and botanists that aims to bring all antiviral phytochemicals and diseases together from published work especially related to COVID-19, cancer, HIV and malaria	Free	English
Āyurveda Formulation Advanced Database73	Ayurveda	India	Ayurveda formulations categorized by their ingredients and methods of preparation used in Ayurveda formulations	Free	English
Ayush Research Portal76	Ayush	India	Evidence-based research data of Ayush systems globally	Free	English; Hindi
Bioinformatics Annotation database for Molecular mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine (BATMAN-TCM)25,145	Medicinal plants; traditional Chinese medicine	China	Integrative database of known and predicted links between ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine and target proteins. Designed to understand the pharmacological mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicines and identify active ingredients for disease treatment	Free	English
Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Cancer (CAM Cancer)97,143	Integrative oncology	Norway	Summaries of the best available evidence on safety and efficacy of complementary and alternative medicine in cancer care	Free	English
Complementary and alternative medicine database (CAMbase) 67,149,150	Complementary and integrative medicine	Germany	Literature on complementary and alternative medicine in different resources to support the availability of a systematic overview of relevant literature in the field	Free	English; German
CancerHSP26,151	Medicinal plants; integrative oncology	China	An anticancer herbs database of systems pharmacology which Includes 2439 anticancer herbal medicines with 3575 anticancer ingredients, with the molecular structure and key absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) parameters provided for each ingredient. The anticancer activities of these compounds are based on 492 different cancer cell lines	Free	English; Mandarin
CANNUSE106,152,153	Medicinal plants	Spain	Provides different aspects of cannabis uses, with more than 2300 data entries from 649 publications related to medicinal, alimentary, fibre and other ethnobotanical cannabis uses from different geographical areas and cultures around the world	Free	English
Computer Access to Research on Dietary Supplements Database (CARDS)127,154	Dietary supplements	United States	Includes federally funded research projects pertaining to dietary supplements	Free	English
ccTCM40,155	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Provides quantitative analytic data on components and compounds in traditional Chinese medicine, and a variety of online analysis services based on these data	Free	English
Chinese Medicinal Material Images Database41,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China, Hong Kong SAR	Documents more than 420 crude (unprocessed) drugs commonly used in Chinese medicine practice, providing drug information on source, origin, description, quality, taste and clinical indications, and using high quality photographs to illustrate and identify key properties and selected microstructure of the drugs	Free	English; Mandarin
Chinese Medicine Formulae Images Database42,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Comprises 182 Chinese medicine formulae commonly used in Chinese medical practice, with images and detailed descriptions, including formula composition, processing forms, function, indications and use	Free	English; Mandarin
Chinese Medicine Resource Net43,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Includes old textbooks providing historical insights, traditional prescriptions used in Chinese medicine and acupuncture techniques, as well as information on medicinal teas with a role in herbal therapies	Free; by log-in	Mandarin
Chinese Medicine Specimen Database44,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China, Hong Kong SAR	A collection of all exhibits of Chinese Materia Medica specimens displayed in the Chinese Medicine Centre	Free	English; Mandarin
Collective Molecular Activities of Useful Plants (CMAUP)27,143,156	Medicinal plants	China	Provides molecular activities of 7865 plants, including 2954 medicinal plants used in 79 countries or regions, 758 human target proteins and 3013 cancer genetics (gene ontology), 238 KEGG pathways (target proteins of the plant), and their relations to 1399 human diseases	Free	English
Cochrane Complementary Medicine121	Traditional medicine; complementary and integrative medicine	United States	Website to support and promote systematic reviews of complementary, traditional, alternative and integrative medicine	Restricted by log-in	English; SP
Clinical Outcome Research in Homeopathy Database (CORE-Hom)112,157	Homeopathy	United Kingdom	Homeopathy database with information on homeopathic research and the quality of studies included	Restricted by log-in	English; German
Database of Unani Medicine61	Unani medicine	Germany	Comprises published and unpublished texts, archival material and research literature related to Graeco-Islamic medicine in South Asia, including general research literature on health, medicine and medical ethics in Muslim states and societies in South Asia and other regions	Free	Arabic; English; French; German; Persian; Urdu
Database of Constituents Absorbed into the Blood and Metabolites of Traditional Chinese Medicines (DCABM-TCM)28,158	Medicinal plants; traditional Chinese medicine	China	Includes constituents absorbed into blood and metabolites of traditional Chinese medicine	Free	English
Digital Helpline for Ayurveda Research Articles (DHARA)74,159–162	Ayurveda	India	Online index of articles on Ayurveda published in research journals worldwide	Free	English
Drug Herb Interaction45,163	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Promotes quality control of pharmaceutical care and medications and establishes a medication safety environment of Chinese medicine in China	Free	English
Diseases Plants Eliminate (DISPEL)79,164	Medicinal plants	India	Compendium of medicinal plants used for the treatment of infectious as well as noninfectious diseases in humans, with more than 60 000 medicinal plants and associations between medicinal plants and treated diseases including about 5500 medicinal plants and 1000 diseases	Free	English
Dietary Supplements Compendium (DSC)128,165	Dietary supplements	United States	Comprehensive information on ingredient safety and safe limits which supports the development of new dietary supplements, including research, quality control, quality assurance and regulatory and/or compendial matters	Restricted by log-in	English
Dietary Supplement Ingredient Database (DSID)129,166	Dietary supplements	United States	Provides estimated levels of ingredients in dietary supplements sold in the United States	Free	English
Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD)130,167	Dietary supplements	United States	Catalogues all information printed on labels of dietary supplement products sold in the United States	Free	English
The National Cancer Institute Natural Products Repository131	Natural products; integrative oncology	United States	The world’s largest repository of natural products, housing almost 170 000 extracts from samples of more than 70 000 plants and 10 000 marine organisms collected from more than 25 countries, as well as more than 30 000 extracts of different bacteria and fungi	Free	English
Egyptian herbal monograph58	Medicinal plants	Egypt	Includes four databases: Traditional Wild Medicinal Plants; Pharmacopoeial Wild Medicinal Plants; Medicinal Plants used in Egypt; and Herbal Formulations used in Egypt	Free	English
Electroacupuncture. Clinical Studies Database111,143	Acupuncture	United Kingdom	Includes clinical studies on electroacupuncture and other nontraditional acupuncture-based interventions	Free	English
ePlantLIBRA20,168	Medicinal plants	Belgium	A database that comprises information on plant- and plant-food supplements, specifically the bioactive compounds in botanicals and herbal extracts with putative health benefits and adverse effects, giving scientific names, plant families, synonyms, common names in 15 European languages, and colour photographs with details on edible parts, colour, size and shape	Free	English
Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ETCM)29,145,169,170	Medicinal plants; traditional Chinese medicine	China	Comprehensive and standardized information on the commonly used herbs and formulas of traditional Chinese medicine, as well as their predicted target genes, allowing the relationships between traditional Chinese medicine herbs, formulas, ingredients, gene targets and related pathways or diseases to be explored	Free	English
Ethiopian Traditional Medicine Database (ETM-DB)59,171	Medicinal plants	Ethiopia	Includes Ethiopian herbal medicines, related compounds and target genes and/or proteins, as well as phytochemical information	Free	English
1 K Medicinal Plant Genome Database30,172	Medicinal plants	China	Provides sequencing of 1000 important medicinal plant genomes to promote research of genomics, secondary metabolite synthesis biology and related molecular breeding of medicinal plants	Free	English; Mandarin
Global Information Hub on Integrative Medicine (GlobInMed)95	Traditional medicine; complementary and integrative medicine	Malaysia	A global electronic resource on traditional and complementary medicine, which includes scientific publications, information about courses and more resources for registered users	Free	English
Global Online Ayurveda Library (GOAL)75	Ayurveda	India	A thematic library designed to educate, engage and encourage users to explore the history, philosophy, therapeutic principles, pharmacology and modern advancements in Ayurveda	Free	English
Global Pharmacopoeia Genome Database (GPGD)31,145	Medicinal plants	China	Includes herb genomics data for more than 1000 medicinal species from pharmacopoeias of China, Europe, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Japan, Republic of Korea and the USA, with more than 34 000 records from 903 species	Free	English
HERB46,170,173	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	A large-scale experiment- and reference-guided database of traditional Chinese medicine	Free	English; Mandarin
Herbal Medicine Compendium115,165	Medicinal plants	United States	Contains standards for herbal ingredients used in herbal medicines, primarily in monographs, including general information and the definition of the herbal ingredient related to the monograph title, as well as tests for critical quality attributes of the herbal ingredient, analytical test procedures and acceptance criteria for specified tests	Restricted by log-in	English
Herbal Medicine Database, Thaicrudedrug109	Medicinal plants	Thailand	Includes scientific name, chemical composition, properties, and pharmacological, toxicological and clinical studies related to herbal medicines	Free	Thai
Herbal Medicine Omics Database32,174	Medicinal plants	China	Promotes the communication of medicinal plants and related synthetic biology research	Free	English
HerbMed & HerbMedPro116,143	Medicinal plants	United States	Provides hyperlinked access to scientific publications underlying the use of more than 50 of the most popular herbs	Free	English
Herbal Ingredients’ Targets (HIT)33,173,175,176	Medicinal plants	China	Comprehensive searching and curation platform for herbal ingredients and target information based on literature evidence	Free	English, Mandarin
Homeopathy Basic Research Experiments database (HomBRex)64,177	Homeopathy	Germany	Three databases covering experimental and clinical studies in homeopathy. Indexes experimental and clinical studies in homeopathy including animal, human, plant, fungi and microbial organisms	Free	German
Homeoindex22,178	Homeopathy	Brazil	Provides scientific and technical information on homeopathy	Free	English; Portuguese; Spanish
Veterinary Clinical Research Database in Homeopathy (HomVetCR)65,179	Homeopathy	Germany	Contains 476 experiments in homeopathic veterinary clinical research	Restricted by log-in	English
Index to Chiropractic Literature17,180	Chiropractic	Australia	Includes peer-reviewed literature produced by chiropractic publishers with links to chiropractic organizations, and links to high-quality online resources in chiropractic	Free	English
Indian Medicinal Plants, Phytochemistry and Therapeutics (IMPPAT)80,181	Medicinal plants	India	Provides information on 1742 Indian medicinal plants, 9596 phytochemicals and 1124 therapeutic uses	Free	English
Integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine (ITCM)47,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Collects and analyses uniform high-throughput sequencing data sets, including 1488 high-quality pharmacological transcription profiles of 496 active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine	Free	English
International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registry (ITMCTR)56,143	Traditional medicine	China	A nonprofit online resource of clinical trials being conducted in the field of traditional medicine across the world	Free	English
KNOW (Knowledge in Integrative Oncology Website) Database24,182,183	Integrative oncology	Canada	Provides data on tumour type, natural therapy, conventional treatment and side-effects	Restricted by log-in	English
Lexi-Natural Products133,184	Natural products	United States	A comprehensive, peer-reviewed database providing evidence-based information on more than 450 natural products, herbs and dietary supplements. It is designed for health workers, offering in-depth, structured monographs including dosage, pharmacology, interactions, toxicology and clinical data	Payment required	English
Thai Medicinal Plant Recipe Database (MANOSROI III)110,159–161,185–188	Medicinal plants; Thai traditional medicine	Thailand	Includes Thai medicinal plant recipes from several regions of Thailand, with 723 medicinal textbooks recipes, searchable by recipe, disease, symptoms of the diseases and herbal plants	Free	English; Thai
Medline Plus. Herbs and Supplements117	Medicinal plants; natural products; dietary supplements	United States	A repository of herbal medicines and complementary therapies	Free	English; Spanish
Medicinal Fungi Secondary Metabolite And Therapeutics (MeFSAT)89,189	Natural products	India	Includes 184 medicinal fungi with information on their 1830 secondary metabolites and their 149 therapeutic uses	Free	English
Mistletoe-Therapy108	Anthroposophic medicine	Switzerland	Provides an overview of scientific studies on the clinical application of mistletoe therapy for cancer, including drug safety, quality of life, combination with other therapies and clinical evidence (overall survival, tumour response)	Free	English; German; Spanish
Medicinal Materials DNA Barcode Database (MMDBD)34,145	Medicinal plants; natural products	China	Provides DNA sequences of medicinal materials and information on and key references for the medicinal materials in the Pharmacopoeia of China, American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and other references	Free	English
MOSAIC139	Traditional medicine; complementary and integrative medicine	Countries in the Region of the Americasa	Includes conventional and nonconventional documents on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine and related practices in the Region of the Americas	Free	English; Portuguese; Spanish
MPDB 2.018,19,148,190	Medicinal plants; Indigenous knowledge	Bangladesh	Provides phytochemical data on more than 500 indigenous medicinal plants in Bangladesh, giving the plant’s scientific name, family name, local names, parts used and active compounds	Free	English
Myrica rubra database35,191	Medicinal plants	China	Database on Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra Sieb. & Zucc.), extracts of which contain antioxidants against inflammation, allergies, diabetes, cancer, bacterial infections and diarrhoea, among other health issues	Free	English
Natural Product–Drug Interaction Research Database (NaPDI)134,145,192	Natural products	United States	Examines natural product–drug interactions to determine the clinical relevance of pharmacokinetic interactions between natural products and conventional medications	Free	English
Natural Products 13C NMR Database (NAPROC-13)107,145	Natural products	Spain	Provides different search tools to determine the structure of compounds of natural products	By log-in	English; French; German; Italian; Portuguese; Spanish
Native American Ethnobotany122,143	Indigenous knowledge	United States	Documents plants used as drugs, foods, dyes, fibres and more by Indigenous Peoples of North America	Free	English
Native Health Database123	Indigenous knowledge	United States	Includes bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys and other resource documents related to health and health care of Indigenous Peoples of North America for the benefit, use and education of organizations and individuals with an interest in health-related issues, programmes and initiatives for these peoples	Free	English
NatMed Pro (previously Natural Standard)126,143	Complementary and integrative medicine; dietary supplements; natural products	United States	Provides information on dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary, alternative and integrative therapies based on objective and unbiased evidence	Payment required	English
North East India medicinal plants database (NEI-MPDB)81,193	Medicinal plants	India	Provides an extensive list of medicinal plants used in the north-eastern part of India, including medicinal plants specific to each state, the parts used, method of use, ailments treated and phytochemical constituents of the plants	Free	English
Natural Products Magnetic Resonance Database (NP-MRD)135,145	Natural products	United States	Contains nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and structural data for all known natural products, such as vitamins, minerals, and probiotics as well as small molecules derived from plants, fungi, bacteria, marine organisms and animals	Free	English
Naturally occurring plant-based anticancerous compound-activity-target database (NPACT)88,145	Integrative oncology; natural products	India	Includes natural compounds found in plants that exhibit anticancer activity and has 1574 entries, with each record providing information on the compound’s structure and properties (physical, elemental and topological), cancer type and cell lines against which it has activity, inhibitory values, molecular targets, commercial suppliers and drug-like properties of compounds	Free	English
Natural Product Activity and Species Source Database (NPASS)36,145	Medicinal plants; natural products	China	Includes species source of natural products and connects natural products to biological targets via experimental quantitative activity data; includes 94 413 unique natural products isolated from 32 287 source organisms with 958 866 activity records on 7753 targets	Free	English
New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence (NPM)96	Indigenous knowledge	New Zealand	Provides research of relevance to Māori communities, including research reports since 2002, videos, short documentaries, social media clips, seminars, keynotes and presentations, books, MAI Journal, AlterNative, E-PANUI (monthly newsletter), and AROTAHI papers	Free	English; Māori
NuBBE23,145	Natural products	Brazil	A database that contains a variety of natural products isolated from Brazilian biodiversity and provides information on chemical (metabolic class, chemical structure, physicochemical properties), biological (species, geographic location, biological activities), pharmacological and spectroscopic data.	Free	English; Portuguese
OSTLIB70,194	Osteopathy	Germany	Includes the entire spectrum of osteopathic studies and professional articles	Free	English
Osteopathic Medical Digital Repository (OSTMED.DR)17,136,195	Osteopathic medicine	United States	An osteopathic medicine digital library that builds on OSTMED®, a bibliographic index to the literature of osteopathic medicine	Free	English; French; German; Korean; Mandarin; Spanish
PharmDB-K101,196	Traditional Korean medicine	Republic of Korea	Provides comprehensive information on drugs (compounds) related to traditional Korean medicine, disease indication and protein relationship	Free	English; Korean
PlantMolecularTasteDB102,145	Medicinal plants	Romania	Integrates data on orosensorially active phytochemicals (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, pungent, astringent), their chemical and sensorial profile, and their biological activities, such as anti-inflammatory activity	Free	English
PlantPepDB82,145	Medicinal plants	India	Includes plant peptides with different functions and therapeutic activities, with 3848 peptide entries collected from 11 databases and 835 published research articles. Information provided includes peptide sequence, functional information, source, physicochemical properties and tertiary structure	Free	English
ProBioQuest57,197	Natural products	China	Provides up-to-date literature related to probiotics	Free	English
Prediction Tool for Plant-derived Antimicrobial Peptides (PTPAMP)83,145	Medicinal plants	India	Allows prediction of the antimicrobial activity of plant-derived peptides and categorizes results as antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral activities	Free	English
Qigong and Energy Medicine Database™120,143,198	Traditional Chinese medicine	United States	Contains around 20 000 abstracts of documents collected by the Qigong Institute since 1984	Free	English
Repositório Saúde dos Povos Indígenas21	Indigenous knowledge	Brazil	Includes publications, multimedia and news on the health of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil	Free	Portuguese
South African Natural Compounds Database (SANCDB)105,145	Medicinal plants; natural products	South Africa	Comprises compounds isolated from plant and marine life in and around South Africa, the extracts of which have displayed antimicrobial, anticancer and antidiabetic activity, as well as activity against various neurological disorders	Free	English
Societas Medicinae Sinensis Literature Database60,143	Traditional Chinese medicine	Germany	Provides access to more than 3000 specialist articles in the field of Chinese medicine	Free	English; German; Mandarin
SuperNatural 3.069,145	Natural products	Germany	Documents natural products and natural product-based derivatives and contains 790 096 different structures (including isomers) and 449 058 unique natural compounds with their structural and physicochemical information. Additional information includes pathways, mechanism of action, toxicity, and vendor information, if available	Free	English
Discover Supplement–Drug Interactions (SUPP.Al)118,145	Medicinal plants; natural products	United States	Presents evidence of supplement and drug interactions extracted from the scientific literature	Free	English
Seaweed Metabolite Database (SWMD)90,145	Natural products	India	Includes secondary metabolites from seaweeds with 1191 seaweed compounds, mostly from the red algae Laurencia spp., and comprehensive information on geographical origin, extraction and biological activity	Free	English
SymMap48,199	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Integrates traditional Chinese medicine with modern medicine through internal molecular mechanism and external symptom mapping, thus providing information on herbs and ingredients, targets, clinical symptoms and diseases treated	Free	English
TCM Database@Taiwan49,169,170,200–204	Traditional Chinese medicine	China, Taiwan	Contains three-dimensional structural information on 37 170 traditional Chinese medicine compounds from 352 different herbs, animal products and minerals, including chemical name, traditional Chinese medicine name, molecular properties and molecular structure	Free	English
TCM2COVID50,205,206	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Documents more than 280 anti-COVID traditional Chinese medicine formulas and more than 80 natural products related to 300+ herbs, and describes mechanisms of action of new anti-COVID traditional Chinese medicines	Free	English
TCMBank145,207	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Provides standardized information on traditional Chinese medicines, ingredients, diseases and their corresponding gene targets	Free	English
DNA Barcoding System for Identifying Herbal Medicine37,145	Medicinal plants	China	Provides a species identification module for herbal materials, internal transcribed spacer 2 and psbA–trnH are the core and supplementary DNA barcodes, respectively, selected for herbal materials	Free	English; Mandarin
Traditional Chinese Medicine Information Database (TCM-ID)104,170,208	Traditional Chinese medicine	Singapore	Facilitates the research and clinical investigations of traditional Chinese medicine, the authentication of herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, and the link to health-care big data (via ICD-11 traditional medicine condition codes). The database includes 7443 traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions with information on medicine name, composition, functions and symptoms	Free	English
Traditional Chinese Medicine on Immuno-Oncology (TCMIO)51,145,209	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Explores the molecular mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine in modulating the cancer immune microenvironment	Free	English
TCMPG52,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Provides genome data of plants used in traditional Chinese medicine and computational tools for researchers to perform systematic analysis, with 160 kinds of plants, 195 corresponding genomes and 255 herbs with the related information on plant species, genomes and herbal medicines included	Free	English
Traditional Chinese Medicine Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP)53,170	Medicinal plants; traditional Chinese medicine	China	A pharmacology platform of Chinese herbal medicines that captures the relationships between drugs, targets and diseases. The database includes chemicals, targets and drug-target networks, and associated drug-target-disease networks, as well as pharmacokinetic properties for natural compounds involving oral bioavailability, drug-likeness, intestinal epithelial permeability, blood–brain barrier, aqueous solubility	Free	English; Mandarin
The Phyto4Health103,210	Medicinal plants	Russian Federation	A database of phytocomponents from plants in the Russian Pharmacopoeia that contains 3128 unique structures of chemical compounds, 233 taxonomic species of 71 families of official Russian medicinal plants, 9489 plant part and phyto component data on interactions with 802 human molecular targets and prediction of biological activities	Free	English
TIPdb38,145	Medicinal plants	China, Taiwan	Includes anti-cancer, anti-platelet and anti-tuberculosis phytochemicals from indigenous plants in China, Taiwan with their chemical structures	Free	English
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)7,211	Ayurveda; Ayush; Medicinal plants; natural products; Unani medicine	India	Contains about 1250 formulations selected from various classical texts of Indian systems of medicine, which use ingredients of plant, animal or mineral origin to treat certain disease conditions	Free	English; French; German; Japanese; Spanish
TM-MC 2.0100,170,212	Medicinal plants; traditional Chinese medicine; traditional Korean medicine; Kampo medicine	Republic of Korea	Includes information on chemical compounds of medicinal materials listed in Korean, Chinese and Japanese pharmacopoeias, with their corresponding identifiers and pharmacokinetic properties, and information on prescriptions, gene targets, diseases and their associations	Free	English
Program of Applied Research to Popular Medicine in the Caribbean (TRAMIL)138	Medicinal plants	Countries in the Region of the Americasb	Contains photographs, scans, drawings, a herbarium, thin-section specimens and 100 monographs of 360 medicinal Caribbean plants	Free	English; French; Spanish
UNaProd91,213	Persian medicine; natural products	Iran (Islamic Republic of)	Comprises information on natural products used in Iranian traditional medicine, including medicinal uses, adverse effects, preparation, alternatives, dosage, origin, common name and scientific name	Free	Arabic; English
Veterinary Clinical Research Database for Homeopathy (VetCR)66,214	Homeopathy	Germany	Contains 200 entries of randomized clinical trials, nonrandomized clinical trials, observational studies, drug provings, case reports and case series related to homeopathic medicine, with 22 clinical fields covered	Restricted by log-in	English; German
VIETHERB137,215	Medicinal plants; traditional Vietnamese medicine	Viet Nam	Includes information about various herbs used in traditional Vietnamese medicine as well as related information such as metabolism, diseases, morphology and geographical location of each species	Free	Vietnamese
Wanfang data, China Medical Collections54,143,216	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	Provides Chinese medicine literature and documentation covering medical journals, dissertations, conference proceedings, patents, standards, companies and products	Free	English; Mandarin
Anti Mtb Medicinal Plants Database (AMMPDB)84,144	Medicinal plants	India	Contains Indian medicinal plants with antitubercular properties reported in Ayurveda	Free	English
Arctium lappa Database39,217	Medicinal plants	China	Provides information on Arctium lappa (commonly known as burdock), a food and medicinal plant, including data on burdock’s genome, transcriptome, metabolic pathways, phenotype variation and chemical composition	Free	English
Chinese Herbal Dictionary55,145	Traditional Chinese medicine	China	A bilingual dictionary including herbal usage and toxicity/warnings, and Latin (botanical) names and common names of herbs	Free	English; Mandarin
DATADIWAN71,198	Holistic medicine and therapies	Germany	Provides extensive information on holistic medicine and alternative-science	Free	English; German
Yoga Therapy Library113c	Yoga	United Kingdom	An online resource hub for yoga professionals, mental health professionals and medical professionals	Payment required	English
KampoDB92c	Kampo medicine	Japan	Provides information about natural compound–protein interactions predicted through docking simulations and machine learning, and what pathways and biological processes are predicted to be affected by Kampo formulas and crude drugs	Free	English; Japanese
ETHMEDmmm93	Kampo medicine	Japan	Includes scientific information on crude drugs and the crude drug specimens stored in the Museum of Materia Medica	Free	English; Japanese
TradMPD94c	Kampo medicine	Japan	Provides scientific information on crude drugs, Kampo formulas and natural compounds, and includes the results of genetic (crude drug only), chemical and biological analyses on crude drugs, Kampo formulas and natural compounds	Free	English; Japanese
Indian Medicinal Plants Nomenclature Database85c	Medicinal plants	India	Covers the natural resources used by the Indian system of medicine such as botanical and local names, geodistribution data, maps, propagation and trade information, and stores 7637 botanical names with 119 183 local names from 12 languages across India and 2688 plant images	Free	English
Traded Medicinal Plant Database86c	Medicinal plants	India	Includes 960 medicinal plant species forming the source of 1289 botanical raw drugs in trade in India	Free	English
EIACP Resource Partner on Biodiversity87c	Medicinal plants	India	Provides information on medicinal plants, including traditional uses	Free	English
Indian Medicinal Plants Database77c	Medicinal plants, Ayush	India	Includes 7263 botanical names, more than 150 000 local names in 10 Indian languages and more than 5000 images of Indian medicinal plants related to specific botanical entities	Free	English
Philippine Traditional Knowledge Digital Library on Health99c	Traditional knowledge	Philippines	Includes ethnopharmacological documentation, traditional healing practices (including rituals), plant compendium, directory of traditional healers, traditional healing terminologies from ethnobotanical studies, old lexicographic and linguistic texts, and current research being conducted in selected ethnolinguistic groups	Free	English

COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019; DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid; HIV: human immunodeficiency virus; ICD-11: International Classification of Diseases 11th revision.

^a Database covers Latin American and Caribbean countries.

^b Database covers Caribbean countries.

^c Resources that were referred to the review team during the manuscript review.

Discussion

We compiled an inventory of 125 digital resources on traditional medicine through this rapid review. These resources included online databases, digital knowledge repositories, digital libraries, searchable web portals and other internet-based platforms that provide access to traditional knowledge, scientific literature and technical or policy-related information.

Our results indicate an emphasis on pharmacognosy and compound discovery within traditional medicine digital documentation. Our results also reveal an important gap in the global visibility, accessibility and preservation of diverse health knowledge systems as few resources focused on Indigenous medicine from regions outside Asia. Our findings are consistent with previous studies highlighting the global research emphasis on bioprospecting and the pharmacological study of natural products.²¹⁸

Bibliometric analyses have demonstrated an increase in publications related to traditional medicine over the past three decades, which reflects a broader interest in the evidence-based integration of traditional medicine into modern health systems.^219,220 The predominance of digital resources on Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine corresponds with well-established trends in the scientific literature, where codified traditional medical systems are more frequently represented. Nevertheless, national efforts to establish digital repositories, such as repositories in the Philippines and Thailand, demonstrate emerging initiatives to document different medical traditions. Despite such efforts, our findings point to persistent inequities in digital representation, particularly regarding Indigenous medicine from the Americas and African traditional medicine, which remain largely absent from digital knowledge platforms.^221,222 This imbalance reflects broader analyses of exclusion and underrepresentation of knowledge systems in the global health knowledge landscape.

The thematic focus of the digital resources identified further illustrates the dominance of pharmacological and botanical approaches. This pattern reflects a research landscape shaped by bioprospecting priorities and the biomedical framing of traditional knowledge, which often favours discrete bioactive components over holistic systems of care. This finding highlights the lack of platforms that integrate different forms of evidence across traditions and methods. The underrepresentation of Indigenous medicine may result from both knowledge-system barriers, such as favouring European and North American validation criteria, and structural challenges, including limited digitization initiatives, language exclusion and the historical marginalization of Indigenous knowledge systems.^221–223 These findings underscore the need to broaden the scope of digital documentation on traditional medicine to include more diverse knowledge frameworks and community-led approaches, especially if digital platforms are to support equitable access, policy development and ethical knowledge-sharing.

Beyond information gaps, this review highlights the ethical and legal complexities associated with the digitization and use of traditional health knowledge. Many digital resources do not explicitly state the terms of access, consent or benefit-sharing, thus raising concerns about biopiracy and the misappropriation of Indigenous knowledge. The historical exclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities from decision-making processes related to knowledge governance continues to influence who can access traditional knowledge and under what conditions. As WHO advances the continuous development of the Traditional Medicine Global Library, the establishment of safeguards will be essential to ensure free, prior and informed consent, equitable access, appropriate attribution and mechanisms for benefit-sharing, which are aligned with the Nagoya Protocol and the principles outlined in the Gujarat Declaration.²²³ Initiatives such as the Traditional Medicine Global Library vault, which will provide a secure digital infrastructure for the long-term preservation of traditional knowledge, are important steps to protecting intellectual sovereignty. By enabling traceable metadata, controlled access and culturally sensitive governance, such platforms can promote responsible knowledge-sharing and ensure fair recognition and compensation for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

A key strength of our rapid review is its systematic and transparent approach to identifying digital resources of traditional medicine across multiple regions, knowledge systems and thematic topics. The review provides a timely mapping of the digital landscape, which can inform the development of the WHO Traditional Medicine Global Library. The combination of electronic searches and expert consultation allowed for identification of a broad range of resources, despite the recognized constraints. However, several limitations to the review must be acknowledged. First, the review focused on digital and internet-retrievable resources and excluded nondigitized, locally maintained and oral knowledge repositories, such as community pharmacopoeias, materia medica and cultural archives. These resources may contain valuable information on traditional medicine not captured in formal databases.²²³ Second, we excluded potentially relevant resources due to broken links or restricted access, which limited comprehensiveness and illustrates the precarious nature of digital permanence. Third, the limited added value of expert consultation suggests that significant portions of traditional knowledge remain either inaccessible, nondigitized or structurally excluded from indexed platforms, which underscores broader challenges of visibility and knowledge equity in global knowledge systems.²¹⁹ Finally, the digital resources were accessed until 28 February 2025, when we first submitted our paper for publication, but subsequently some links were no longer accessible by the time of publication. This work should therefore be interpreted as a snapshot of databases available in the first quarter of 2025. The observed loss of database accessibility within a single year underscores the need for sustainable mechanisms to ensure the long-term digital preservation of resources that may inform health systems and health policy. The digital preservation of traditional knowledge presents particular challenges, especially for initiatives that lack stable, long-term funding.

In addition to mapping the global landscape of traditional medicine digital resources, our review offers insights to inform the technical, conceptual and ethical design of the WHO Traditional Medicine Global Library. The classification of resources by thematic topic, content type and geographic origin contributes to the development of an ontology and metadata structure capable of supporting interoperability across different knowledge systems. Importantly, the identification of gaps, such as the underrepresentation of Indigenous knowledge and the dominance of pharmacognosy, highlights the need for inclusive data models that support diverse epistemic evidence and nonbiomedical frameworks. These findings can also guide the formulation of data governance protocols and access layers within the Traditional Medicine Global Library, including provisions for resource attribution, culturally sensitive access restrictions and the secure storage of protected or sensitive knowledge. To address the prevailing bias towards pharmacological data, the Traditional Medicine Global Library must actively manage different forms of evidence, including Indigenous healing practices, nonpharmacological interventions and community-based health models. Expanding access to underrepresented traditional medicine customs, particularly Indigenous and African traditional medicine, will require targeted digitization initiatives and equitable partnerships with knowledge holders. Moreover, the library should support the ethical and evidence-informed integration of traditional medicine into health systems by enabling different research methods, facilitating policy dialogue and safeguarding traditional knowledge through secure tools such as the library’s vault. Collectively, these measures will help ensure that the Traditional Medicine Global Library evolves into a dynamic, inclusive platform that fosters equitable knowledge-sharing, strengthens regulatory and research capacity, and advances global health equity.