Fall 2020, Issue 3, pp. 29–30
[Online 25 Nov. 2020, Article A020]
[PDF]

Resources & Updates: Fall 2020

PHRS Staff

Editors’ Note: This section emphasizes resources at the intersection of religion/spirituality and public health, as well as major organizations that at times address these intersections. Please see the “Resources”  tab on the PHRS website for more content, and please send new potential content to this section to:  PHRSadm1@publichealthrs.org and phrsadmin0@publichealthrs.org

COVID-19, Religion, and Public Health

• In this issue: Doug Oman, Covid-19 and Religion/Spirituality: A Global Review from a Public Health Perspective (please see bibliography for an expanded list of resources)
• PHRS Board Member, Susan Holman, Disease, Community, and Grief in a COVID-19 World
• International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID), Interfaith Dialogue in Action on COVID-19
• Essay by Mark Faries, Texas A&M Professor of Behavioral and Lifestyle Medicine: Voices: COVID-19 and the concern of chronic disease in the church
• Essays reflecting on tensions between COVID-19 restrictions, illness prevention, and Eucharist in Orthodox Christian communities: Public Orthodoxy and Eucharist and Do the Sacraments Prevent Illness?
• November 2020: Spirituality, religiosity and the mental health consequences of social isolation during Covid-19 pandemic (Lucchetti et al.), International Journal of Social Psychiatry
• October 2020: National Well-Being Measures Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Online Samples (VanderWeele et al.), Journal of General Internal Medicine
• October 2020: Coping with Racism: a Perspective of COVID-19 Church Closures on the Mental Health of African Americans (DeSouza et al.), Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
• October 2020: Relationships between religion/spirituality and mental health in youth during COVID-19 (Kang et al.), Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• September 2020: Emergency department approach to spirituality care in the era of COVID-19 (Pierce et al.), The American Journal of Emergency Medicine
• July 2020: The role of spirituality in the COVID-19 pandemic: a spiritual hotline project (Ribeiro et al.), Journal of Public Health
• July 2020: A look at the first quarantined community in the United States: Response of religious communal organizations and implications for public health during the COVID-19 pandemic (Weinberger-Litman et al.), Journal of Religion and Health
• June 2020: Religion as a Health Promoter During the 2019/2020 COVID Outbreak: View from Detroit (Modell & Kardia), Journal of Religion and Health
• May 2020: COVID-19 Epidemic and Spirituality: A Review of the Benefits of Religion in Times of Crisis (Fardin), Jundishapur Journal of Chronic Disease
• For more COVID-19/PHRS resources, please see the PHRS resource page: https://publichealthrs.org/resources/

New Research & Materials

• November 2020: Mantram Repetition as a Portable Mindfulness Practice: Applications During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Oman et al.), Mindfulness
• November 2020: Integrating spirituality and mental health: Perspectives of adults receiving public mental health services in California (Yamada et al.), Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
• October 2020: Forgiveness of others and subsequent health and well-being in mid-life: a longitudinal study on female nurses (Long et al.), BMC Psychology
• October 2020: Policy Brief: Religious Networks, Their Impact on SDGS (SDG17), and the Challenges for the International Legal Order (Petkoff et al.), Think20 Saudi Arabia
• October 2020: USAID Evidence Summit on Strategic Religious Engagement Research Papers
• October 2020: Second Victims: Aftermath of Gun Violence and Faith-Based Responses (Galiatsatos et al.), Journal of Religion and Health
• September 2020: Exploring the Impact of Religion and Spirituality on Mental Health and Coping in a Group of Canadian Psychiatric Outpatients (Adams et al.), The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
• August 2020: Religious-service attendance and subsequent health and well-being throughout adulthood: evidence from three prospective cohorts (Chen et al.), International Journal of Epidemiology
• August 2020: The International NERSH Data Pool of Health Professionals’ Attitudes Toward Religiosity and Spirituality in 12 Countries (Kørup et al.), Journal of Religion and Health
• July 2020: Spiritually Motivated Self-Forgiveness and Divine Forgiveness, and Subsequent Health and Well-Being Among Middle-Aged Female Nurses: An Outcome-Wide Longitudinal Approach (Long et al.), Frontiers in Psychology
• June 2020: Building towards common psychosocial measures in U.S. cohort studies: principal investigators’ views regarding the role of religiosity and spirituality in human health (Shields & Balboni), BMC Public Health
• April 2020: Effects of Religious Service Attendance and Religious Importance on Depression: Examining the Meta-analytic Evidence (VanderWeele), The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
• March 2020: Antecedents of purpose in life: Evidence from a lagged exposure-wide analysis (Chen et al.), Cogent Psychology
• January/February 2020: A Pilot Study on Sleep Quality, Forgiveness, Religion, Spirituality, and General Health of Women Living in a Homeless Mission (Brewer-Smyth et al.), Holistic Nursing Practice

Articles, Commentaries, Interviews, Webinars

• WHO Special Bulletin Call for Papers on Behavioural and Social Sciences For Better Health. Manuscript submission open until December 31, 2020.
• Podcast, “Religion as a Social Determinant of Health” with Ellen Idler, Recorded Talk from October 23, 2020
• Conversations in Religion and the Healing Arts, Recorded event from Valparaiso University, Oct 14, 2020
• Lecture by Prof. David Nirenberg, Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School: What Pandemics Mean for Religion, Recorded Talk from July 2, 2020

Upcoming Conferences & Conference Minutes

• UPCOMING: Virtual Conference on Religion and Medicine, March 22-24, 2021: Abstracts open until Dec 1: http://www.medicineandreligion.com/
• UPCOMING: International, interfaith, interdisciplinary “virtual” symposium: “Fostering Faith, Forgiveness and Flourishing for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse” April 8–10, 2021. Keynote address by Rev. Dr. Denis Mukwege, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. This event aims to provide a diverse range of topics and research from a variety of faiths, disciplines, and perspectives. For presenting a case study or research paper please see further details and upcoming submission deadlines at: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/Symposium-On-Child-Abuse
• PAST: American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, October 24, 2020: Business Meeting of the Caucus on Public Health and the Faith Community