Across the health ecosystem, leaders and practitioners increasingly recognize religion as a critical social determinant of health.

Yet, despite our nation’s growing religious diversity, few health professionals are equipped with the religious literacy and interfaith competencies needed to address this critical factor in wellbeing. Additionally, most health leaders do not fully engage the web of faith-inspired support systems as trusted allies and assets in the care cycle. 

To address this need, Interfaith America (IA) has received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to support “Faith in Health Professions: Integrating Interfaith Competencies Across the Health Fields Programs.” This comprehensive, three-year project will catalyze IA’s growing network of partners — from campuses to health systems, from nonprofits to public health departments — all poised to leverage our nation’s religious diversity as an asset in improving health outcomes for all. 

Activities supported by this grant will include the following: 

• Campus grants: Up to 30 campuses will receive up to $60,000 in funding for two-year projects that combine curricular revision with complementary strategies such as community partnerships, academic exploration, and public scholarship. Smaller “pipeline” grants will enable academic and community partners to implement one or more of these activities.
• Research fellows: Fifteen academic and professional faith and health leaders will convene throughout the three-year project to inform and learn from the campus-based interventions.
• Resource library: Along the way, IA will continue to create and curate relevant materials to support learning on campuses and beyond. IA will strengthen its ability to equip those bridging the faith-health divide, from case studies to syllabi, from multimedia stories to toolkits.
• Network cultivation: Through in-person convenings, virtual platforms, and other activities, this project will expand and strengthen ties among those across the health ecosystem eager to engage religious diversity fruitfully. 
• Storytelling: This project will work strategically to raise awareness about the promise of religious diversity to strengthen health outcomes. From academic conferences and presentations to health system board rooms to public narrative pieces, IA and its partners will showcase evidence highlighting the flourishing of care seekers and health professionals that comes from approaching our diverse religious and spiritual traditions as assets in wellbeing. 

By the end of the grant period, IA and our partners will produce tangible evidence and replicable models for positively engaging religious and spiritual traditions in health settings. In contrast, academic partners and the students they teach grow as leaders in the faith and health movement. 

This project is designed in collaboration with those working for decades at the intersection of faith and health. Their efforts have been impactful in critical instances—the “Memphis Model” is a shining example—but have remained largely at the margins of domains such as clinical medicine, public health, social work, mental health, and theological education. By design, this project applies evidence-based strategies to incorporate religious diversity into existing theoretical models. It thus advances efforts to strengthen the public’s health in clinical settings and beyond. It leverages IA’s growing network of academic partners as agents of change in the academy, in professional guilds, and in shaping public understanding. 

Since our founding in 2002, IA has long promoted the positive and proactive engagement of diverse religious beliefs and practices in civic spaces, including a growing body of work at the intersection of faith and health. IA is primarily a bridging organization, bringing people, institutions, and ideas together across lines of difference to advance the common good. This project will link religious studies and theology educators with health field faculty, campuses with community organizations (health systems, public health departments, faith-based organizations, and others), academic research with public discourse, and theoretical frameworks with practical interventions. 

This project was made possible through the support of Grant 63248 from the John Templeton Foundation.