Religion in the US during the time of a Pandemic: A Medical Perspective

Faith in Crisis: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of the Role of Faith Community Leaders and Faith Community Nurses in Balancing Public Health Guidance and Spiritual Leadership During COVID-19 in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted healthcare and community dynamics. This study explores the roles of faith community nurses and faith community leaders in Johnson City, Tennessee, during the pandemic. Using an ethnographic qualitative approach, we interviewed pastors, FCNs, and other FC leaders to understand their strategies and challenges. FCNs provided crucial health education and addressed vaccine hesitancy, while FC leaders navigated health guidance and spiritual care. The findings highlight innovative measures such as virtual services and health protocols. This study underscores the critical role of FCs in public health, indicating the potential benefit for health training for faith leaders to enhance community resilience.

Religion and survival among European older adults

There are several pathways through which religion can affect longevity. Previous research, predominately from North America, has shown decreased mortality risk for participants that attended religious services. This study aims to examine the association between religion and all-cause mortality in a large sample of older European adults, comparing religious affiliations, and using prayer frequency as well as frequency of participation in a religious organisation as measures of religiousness. To this end, a total of 16,062 participants from the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe were employed for a survival analysis (median follow-up 11.3 years; 3790 recorded deaths). Following a religion was negatively associated with mortality regardless of demographic and socioeconomic factors (HR = 0.81; 95% CI 0.74-0.89). Large differences in the median survival of participants from different religious affiliations can be mostly attributed to demographic and socioeconomic factors. Both frequency of prayer and religious participation exhibited a significant positive dose-response relationship with survival despite adjustments, although the results for religious participation were more profound. Changes on the religiosity levels of the European population will require additional research on the subject in the future.

The impact of Muslim and Christian religious leaders responding to COVID-19 in Israel

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most significant public health emergencies in decades and has affected all countries worldwide. Religious leaders have been recognized as playing a pivotal role in health promotion during times of crisis. This study explored the role that Muslim and Christian religious leaders played in Israel during the pandemic, and the impact that their activities had on the community.

Methods

A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews was conducted with Muslim and Christian religious leaders and health policy makers from the Arab community. Intensive purposeful sampling was used to locate the two target audiences. Interview protocols were developed and included questions about the role they played during the pandemic, challenges they faced, and dialogue and partnerships they had. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic content analysis.

Results

Ten Muslim Sheikhs, three Christian clergy, and four health policy makers were interviewed. Religious leaders played a predominant role in promoting health during the COVID-19 crisis. Both religious leaders and health policy makers reported similar challenges including dealing with fake news and the conspiracy theory, social events and gatherings, frustrations about gaps in policy toward religious institutions, and lack of trust toward State. Health policy makers recognized the key role religious leaders played and emphasized the importance of engaging religious leaders.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for partnership between health policy makers and religious leaders. Religious leaders should play an integral and integrated role in promoting health during future health crises, not only in implementation of guidelines but also in development of policy so that the guidelines are tailored and sensitive to specific communities to avoid conflicts. As trusted authorities, religious leaders serve as a bridge between health authorities and communities and can be mediators who reconcile science, policy and religious perspectives. The routine cooperation between decision makers, opinion leaders, and religious leaders as social gatekeepers can increase the public's level of trust in the system.

Correlation between religion, spirituality and perception of healthcare services utilisation in Poland during COVID-19 pandemic

Background

The worldwide transmission of SARS CoV-2 caused the COVID-19 pandemic and had an impact on healthcare provision. The disruption of reliance on the health system during the COVID-19 pandemic posed a clear threat to public trust. Religiosity, like spirituality, is believed to have a positive influence on people's lives, enabling them to cope with illness, stress, and sudden life changes. In practice, although the terms religiosity and spirituality have similar meanings and are related, they are not identical concepts. The aim of this study is to compare the perceptions of the accessibility and quality of healthcare services provided before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland by religious/spiritual people compared to those for whom religion and spirituality have little or no importance in their lives.

Methodology

This cross-sectional study was based on the authors' questionnaire, carried out during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. Participants in the study were people living in various regions of Poland over 18 who were willing to complete the questionnaire voluntarily. The number of people sampled was two hundred and sixty-four. Convenience sampling method was used for this study. Statistical calculations were performed using Statistica 13 software from TIBCO and PQStat from PQStat Software and were based on the Kruskal-Wallis test, multiple regression model, the chi2 test of independence or the Mann-Whitney test. The result was considered statistically significant when p < α. The significance level was taken as α = 0.05.

Results

Two hundred and sixty-three respondents answered the questionnaire. Among them, 181 (69%) were women, and 82 (31%) were men. It was shown that religion is more important for women than for men and women who report a high role of religion in their lives rated the quality of healthcare services better before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also concluded that religious people for whom religion played a major role and those who were helped by spiritual life rated accessibility and quality higher both before and during the pandemic.

Conclusions

Religious/spiritual people, through their more positive attitudes towards the world, were thought to rate access and quality of healthcare services better. Regardless of religious affiliation, the help of spiritual life during the pandemic or the importance of religion in life in all respondents, perception of healthcare services utilisation were decreased by the pandemic. This prompts thoughts on the implementation of spiritual assistance as a supportive measure to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

Faith-Based Community Members, Family, and COVID-19: The Role of Family Cohesion, Social Support, and Spiritual Support on Quality of Life, Depression, and COVID-19-Prevention Behaviors

This study examined relationships between family cohesion, social support/spiritual support, and quality of life and depression among faith-based community members during the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions. Drawing upon the buffering model of social support and family cohesion as theoretical frameworks, the authors examined these factors in a survey of 551 faith-based community members between March 2020 and June 2020. Family cohesion had a direct and indirect effect (mediated by overall social support and spiritual support on quality of life). Moreover, family cohesion only had a direct effect on depression (e.g., not mediated by overall social support or spiritual support). Greater family cohesion and overall social support were predictive of increased COVID-19-prevention behaviors, while spiritual support was predictive of reduced COVID-19-prevention behaviors.

Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries irrespective of their state of development. In countries with traditional societies, religious leaders have been acknowledged as key stakeholders in community engagement activities, including disease prevention. A community-level prevention model was established in 2020 by the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB), Sri Lanka, which incorporated mobilisation of the clergy to support the prevention and response schemes to COVID-19 with non-governmental stakeholders. This model was part of a more extensive community engagement network established by the HPB in cooperation with the country offices for WHO and UNICEF. Building trust, empowering behavioural traits applicable to minimise risks from COVID-19, leadership and coordination, message dissemination, addressing stigma and discrimination, supporting testing procedures, contact tracing activities and vaccination, building community resilience, spiritual and psychosocial support, and welfare provision are some of the useful factors that were identified in the model. Furthermore, a much broader and holistic approach is needed to focus on health behaviours and social and cultural aspects in a multi-faceted nature. This paper highlights a novel COVID-19 prevention model with active involvement of religious leaders that can be implemented in low resource settings. Our experience from Sri Lanka demonstrates the feasibility of implementing this model to mitigate the disastrous situation following the COVID-19 outbreak.