Framing HIV and AIDS: how leaders of black religious institutions in New York City interpret and address sex and sexuality in their HIV interventions

Exploring a faith-based approach to puberty education in Tanzania

Background

Many adolescents in Tanzania do not receive timely and comprehensive puberty education. This study explored faith-based organizations a site for puberty education. Two puberty books, each developed through participatory research with Tanzanian adolescents and stakeholders, were promoted to 177 Christian denomination churches in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to understand the factors that faith leaders considered in their decision to purchase puberty books, or share information about the intervention to their peers and congregants.

Methods

Data collection included routine monitoring via weekly reports and ethnographic observation. Data were analyzed using the Ecological Framework for Health Promotion to capture how individual, interpersonal, and institutional factors influenced leaders' decisions to purchase or promote puberty books.

Results

At the individual level, leaders cited their personal experiences in their support for the intervention, but leaders' time and confidence in their ability to effectively promote books to others were barriers to participation. Interpersonally, the diffusion of information between church leaders, particularly when information came from well-known or respected leaders, emerged as an important factor in leaders' willingness to promote books. At the institutional level, leaders' decisions were impacted by resources, institutional culture, and institutional hierarchy. Importantly, twelve churches in the sample purchased books. Limited financial resources and the need to receive approval from denominational leaders were discussed by leaders as barriers to purchasing books.

Conclusions

Despite research showing high religiosity in Tanzania, the role of religious institutions in providing puberty education has remained unexplored. Our results inform future research and practice by providing an articulation of the socioecological factors that played a role in faith leaders' decisions related to puberty education interventions in Tanzania.

Correlates of HIV-Related Stigmas Among African American Church-Affiliated Populations in Kansas City

HIV-related stigmas contribute to disparities, and contact with HIV-positive individuals has been suggested to reduce stigma. Faith-based organizations have been recognized as important to stigma reduction efforts among African American populations; however, relatively few church-based studies have measured HIV-related stigma. This study uses baseline data (N = 1,448) from a study with 14 African American churches in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, to examine correlates of HIV-related stigmas among church members and community members accessing church social services using two previously validated scales that measure discomfort interacting with individuals with HIV and anticipated stigma or rejection. Knowing someone with HIV was associated with lower discomfort, even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and sexual risk, HIV knowledge, previous communication about HIV at church, and mean drug and homosexuality stigmas. Knowing someone with HIV was not associated with anticipated stigma or rejection after adjustment. Contact-based interventions hold promise for reducing discomfort around people with HIV among church-affiliated populations.

Is it the Sermon or the Choir? Pastoral Support, Congregant Support, and Worshiper Mental Health

BACKGROUND

Although religious involvement tends to be associated with improved mental health, additional work is needed to identify the specific aspects of religious practice that are associated with positive mental health outcomes. Our study advances the literature by investigating how two unique forms of religious social support are associated with mental health.

PURPOSE

We explore whether support received in religious settings from fellow congregants or religious leaders is associated with participants' mental health. We address questions that are not only of interest to religion scholars, but that may also inform religious leaders and others whose work involves understanding connections between religious factors and psychological outcomes within religious communities.

METHODS

We test several hypotheses using original data from the "Mental Health in Congregations Study (2017-2019)", a survey of Christian and Jewish congregants from South Texas and the Washington DC area (N = 1882). Surveys were collected using both paper and online surveys and included an extensive battery of religious and mental health measures.

RESULTS

Congregant support has more robust direct associations with mental health outcomes than faith leader support. Increased congregant support is significantly associated (p < 0.001) with fewer symptoms of psychological distress (β = - 0.168), anxiety (β = - 0.159), and anger (β = - 0.190), as well as greater life satisfaction (β = 0.269) and optimism (β = 0.283). However, faith leader support moderates these associations such that congregant support is associated with better mental health only in cases where faith leader support is also high. When leader support is low, congregant support and mental health are not associated.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

At the conceptual level, our study adds to an extensive literature on the relationship between religious social support and mental health. Additionally, our work may provide important insights to religious leadership in terms of communications strategies, services, and resources that might enhance overall congregant mental health and well-being.