Incorporating Religious Authorities and Scripture in Health Interventions: Meditating over meaning and modalities

Recent years have witnessed both an increase in health promotion and intervention activities conducted in faith community settings, and an explicit acknowledgement of the need to move from research on individuals to research in collaboration with communities. These public health research trends are built upon the premise that religious teachings and religious authorities exert a powerful influence upon behavior, and that community engagement in research and intervention may lead to more lasting community health improvements. As community-engaged faith-based research evolves, it is evident that there are a wide variety of ways, and different levels of intensity with which, researchers can engage religious teachings and religious leaders in health intervention work. Furthermore, promoting health through faith-based messaging may have different implications, and require different approaches, in different religious communities. In this presentation we will describe how two projects, one conducted in American Muslim mosque communities and the other in African American Baptist congregations in Greater Chicago, incorporate religion in their health behavior intervention projects. The analytic presentation will focus on identifying the different ways in which scripture and religious leaders are utilized in designing and deploying the interventions. From this foundation we outline several critical questions that must be addressed by the faith and health communities of practice in order to culturally tailor and ethically carry out health interventions in religious communities.