Spirituality can boost health and happiness: researchers

According to a new paper by researchers, increased attention to spirituality could lead to improved patient health and well-being.

A new article in the journal Health Affairs points out evidence-based recommendations for how to approach spirituality during serious illness and in health. Citing previous studies, Harvard University researchers said some elements of spirituality may improve patients’ health outcomes.

“A growing body of robust empirical research strongly links spiritual beliefs, states of mind, community practices, and personal rituals to a variety of beneficial health outcomes, including lower overall mortality. This has led some public health scholars to refer to spirituality and religion as determinants of health,” the researchers write.

The researchers also wrote about ways faith-based communities and organizations can partner with health care providers to help patients get the care they need. The article states that faith-based communities “can serve as a bridge to resources related to other social determinants of health,” such as where people live and work.

The researchers included a series of recommendations in their paper on how to integrate spirituality and health care, including increasing “basic spiritual and religious literacy” training in health care settings. They also recommended strengthening relationships between health care leaders and members of the spiritual community.

The recommendations outlined here are only a “starting point” for how to integrate spirituality with clinical care systems, according to the article. Public health practice should seek new ways to “recognize spiritual determinants of health as an important aspect and extension of the well-being of the whole individual and community,” the article said.

“Reimagined clinical and public health systems would routinely consider spiritual factors when crafting policies and practices that are individual- and community-centered,” the researchers wrote.

“The intersection of spirituality and well-being has existed for millennia, but a compelling body of empirical research now provides policymakers with a number of contemporary models of integrative health policy and practice from which to learn and build,” they write in their conclusion.