June 12, 2024 – Greater incorporation of spirituality into U.S. public health and healthcare could improve individual and collective well-being, according to a study co-authored by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The study, published in the June 2024 issue of the journal Health Affairs, was led by Caitlin Long, a research associate in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard Chan School and a postdoctoral fellow in the Human Flourishing Program at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Other co-authors from Harvard Chan include Tyler VanderWeel, the John L. Loeb and Francis Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology, and Howard Ko, the Harvey V. Feinberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership.
Spirituality includes “an ultimate sense of meaning, purpose, transcendence, and connection,” the authors noted. They noted that spiritual elements have played a role in promoting well-being for individuals and the broader population throughout history. In recent years, a growing body of research has shown an association between spirituality and a range of positive health outcomes, including a lower risk of mortality, they added.
The researchers evaluated how spiritual considerations are being integrated into public health and health care in the United States. For example, most U.S. hospitals have chaplaincy training programs, and some states and localities have spiritual and faith-based organizations working as community partners to improve access to health care, including for minorities. “These efforts don’t start from scratch,” Long said in a June 4 Axios article. “If you’re going to scale, you need to find great places to do it.”
The authors offered several recommendations on how to further integrate spiritual considerations into health care, including fostering spiritual and religious literacy in public health training, strengthening connections and trust between public health leaders and spiritual communities, and providing funding to evaluate the scope and impact of spiritual and faith-based interventions on health.
Read the Health Affairs study: Spirituality as a determinant of health: Emerging policies, practices, and systems
Read the Axios article: Experts say medicine needs more spirituality
Read The Hill’s article: Spirituality can boost health and happiness: researchers
Photo: iStock/PeopleImages
