Religious Organizations and Large-Scale Health Related Lifestyle Change Programs

Abstract

Religious organizations (ROs) offer several attributes as sites or as cooperative partners for chronic disease prevention programs. This article addresses a number of basic “principles” that may be used by health professionals for carefully and sensitively approaching ROs to obtain their cooperation in health promotion programs. Specific experiences from which these “principles” derive include the senior author's 10 years of working with religious organizations in Birmingham Alabama as program director of various parent education, high school dropout, and job training programs delivered as part of the Jefferson County Committee of Economic Opportunity, eight years of experience with ROs of Pawtucket Rhode Island as part of the Pawtucket Heart Health Program, and six years of experience with the Health and Religion Project involving 20 ROs scattered throughout both rural and urban (except Pawtucket) areas of Rhode Island. A high proportion of ROs can be involved in health promotion at some level, and programs are facilitated when ROs have a full spectrum of activities from which to choose. Examples are offered ranging from low to high involvement. Although ROs can offer themselves as strong resources, their own resource flow is finite, and implications for health programming are discussed. Emphasis is upon the initial forming of partnerships with ROs beginning with the initial meeting with the cleric through the first stages of joint programming.