Facilitators, Challenges, and Collaborative Activities in Faith and Health Partnerships to Address Health Disparities

Interest in partnering with faith-based organizations (FBOs) to address health disparities has grown in recent years. Yet relatively little is known about these types of partnerships. As part of an evaluation of the Institute for Faith and Public Health Collaborations, representatives of 34 faith-he...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Health education & behavior Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 665 - 679
Main Authors:	Kegler, Michelle C., Hall, Sarah M., Kiser, Mimi
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2010 Sage Publications SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:	Biological and medical sciences Church & state Collaboration Collaborative work Communities Community Support Continental Population Groups Cooperation Cooperative Behavior Delivery of Health Care - organization & administration Discomfort Diversity Facilitators Female Health Health disparities Health Education Health inequalities Health Promotion Health Status Disparities Humans Interinstitutional Relations Interviews Leadership Learning Activities Male Medical sciences Miscellaneous Partnerships Partnerships in Education Politics Prevention and actions Public Health Public Health Practice Public health. Hygiene Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine Religion Religious communities Religious cultural groups Religious organizations Semi Structured Interviews State Church Separation Teams Teamwork Trust Trust (Psychology) United States United States faith-based organization community partnerships health disparities coalitions collaboration Spirituality Organization Community participation Religion Activity Health education Partnership Cooperation Social aspect Community Public health Inequality
ISSN:	1090-1981, 1552-6127, 1552-6127
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Interest in partnering with faith-based organizations (FBOs) to address health disparities has grown in recent years. Yet relatively little is known about these types of partnerships. As part of an evaluation of the Institute for Faith and Public Health Collaborations, representatives of 34 faith-health teams (n = 61) completed semi-structured interviews. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and coded by two members of the evaluation team to identify themes. Major facilitators to faith-health collaborative work were passion and commitment, importance of FBOs in communities, favorable political climate, support from community and faith leaders, diversity of teams, and mutual trust and respect. Barriers unique to faith and health collaboration included discomfort with FBOs, distrust of either health agencies or FBOs, diversity within faith communities, different agendas, separation of church and state, and the lack of a common language. Findings suggest that faith-health partnerships face unique challenges but are capable of aligning resources to address health disparities.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23
ISSN:	1090-1981 1552-6127 1552-6127
DOI:	10.1177/1090198110363882