The Public Health, Religion, and Spirituality Network (PHRS Network), is intended to bring together scientists, scholars, and practitioners of public health who seek to understand the role of spiritual and religious factors in public health research and practice. Building on global interdisciplinary momentum in the spirituality/religion and health field, this new Network emerged in concrete form from conversations at the eighth annual Conference on Medicine and Religion (March 2019, at Duke University). The PHRS Network and its Bulletin reflect our hopeful appraisal that the time is ripe for expanded public health awareness of religious/spiritual factors. In launching this Network and Bulletin, we hope to encourage
- Enhanced collaboration, communication, and collegiality among colleagues interested in public health and religion/spirituality (R/S)
- More conference symposia on R/S and public health
- Raised awareness of emerging resources and existing public health programs that address R/S factors
- Sustained public health attention in research, theory, and practice, to community-level manifestations of R/S
We are conscious of the distinctive nature of “public health” as a field, and how it differs from yet overlaps with clinical fields, as described in the “Welcome” article (link) in the Bulletin‘s inaugural issue. Whereas clinics most commonly treat illness after it occurs, public health emphasizes preventing illness. And whereas clinical fields largely attend to individual outcomes, public health, as reflected in more than 50 US schools and colleges of public health, also seeks understanding of factors that affect a society’s collective level of health, often called population health. The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) has defined public health as
“the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals” (ASPPH, 2016)
Accordingly, this new Network seeks a delicate balance: On the one hand, maintaining awareness that public health concerns overlap with other fields and professions; and on the other hand, maintaining awareness of the distinctive facets and needs of public health. This raises questions such as:
- How do community-level expressions of religion/spirituality affect population-level physical or mental health outcomes?
- What physical and mental health outcomes are affected by public health and faith-based partnerships? What outcomes are important to faith-based groups and how can these also be included and assessed in partnership work?
- How can public health collaborate with religious leaders and organizations to ensure wise stewardship and protection of the natural environment as a foundational source of global human health?
- What is the public health promise of the emerging yet sometimes controversial field of mindfulness, and how should mindfulness-based interventions be tailored to or informed by different religious traditions, western as well as eastern?
Since 2014, we have seen much progress in raising public health awareness of R/S factors, as reflected in several scholarly and scientific books (e.g., Idler, 2014; Holman 2015; Oman, 2018), as well as a special section of the American Journal of Public Health (Idler et al, 2019; Morabia, 2019). This Network has been launched to build on this momentum and carry it forward. Please consider subscribing or collaborating in other ways if you are a professional or a student inspired by such goals.
Our Founding Members (Alphabetical Order):
- Aaron Franzen (Hope college)
- Susan Holman (Valparaiso University)
- Ellen Idler (Emory University)
- Katelyn Long (Harvard University)
- Doug Oman (University of California, Berkeley)
- Tyler VanderWeele (Harvard University)
- Joshua Williams (University of Colorado)
- Everett Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University)