Vision Statement
Some people appeal to their religious beliefs when opposing public health campaigns, while others have religious reasons for caring for the sick, expanding healthcare access, or addressing health disparities. Religion is often a better predictor of attitudes toward medical technologies and health policies than education, income, sex, and race. We believe that engaging people’s spiritual beliefs and practices is an essential step in creating a respectful and effective healthcare system.
The HVS Research Program explores the complex intersection of healthcare, values, and the spiritual life. It supports respectful engagement between public health and people who live out their spiritual life in different ways. The HVS Research Program includes scholars from different religious groups (including no religious affiliation) to provide what sociologists call emic and etic perspectives. That is, our teams bring to projects the insider, lived-experience perspective and the outsider perspective.
