Abstract
This article describes how faith communities often function like an organic social immune system during times of crisis, particularly our current COVID-19 pandemic. We share the strengths of faith communities pertaining to healthcare and public health, as well as name the religious health assets with which faith communities and other health partnerships have to work. These religious health assets have helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Academies of Science (NAS), imagine substantive and sustained partnerships in diverse contexts across many presenting conditions. We share how COVID-19 has affected these faith assets and offer a case study in how the Leading Causes of Life (LCL) and Positive Deviance (PD) frameworks have been implemented in faith partnerships to impact health and racial disparities in the past and now, during the pandemic. We offer recommendations on how the CDC might frame a comprehensive recovery strategy, including faith-based assets in an appropriate and sustained manner to move us towards health and well-being, focusing on leadership capacity of both faith and health domains. Finally, we suggest what not to do as part of a COVID-19 response and recovery in these partnerships.
Highlights
This article describes how faith communities often function like an organic social immune system during times of crisis, our current COVID-19 pandemic
A pandemic focuses the minds of public health leaders on ‘What do we have to work with?’ We grab for technology first, forgetting that humanity has survived many pandemics by means of the social immune
How have the Leading Causes of Life (LCL) and Positive Deviancy (PD) frameworks been implemented in faith partnerships to impact health and racial disparities in the past and during the pandemic? 6
Summary
A pandemic focuses the minds of public health leaders on ‘What do we have to work with?’ We grab for technology first, forgetting that humanity has survived many pandemics by means of the social immune. This article explores faith-based assets for population health as civic muscle, visible in creative community-scale partnerships. 2. What are the strengths of the social unit of faith that pertain to public health? 5. How have the Leading Causes of Life (LCL) and Positive Deviancy (PD) frameworks been implemented in faith partnerships to impact health and racial disparities in the past and during the pandemic? 6. How might the CDC frame a comprehensive recovery strategy, including faith-based assets, in an appropriate manner to move us towards long-term health goals, focusing on leadership capacity to weave both faith and health domains? How might the CDC frame a comprehensive recovery strategy, including faith-based assets, in an appropriate manner to move us towards long-term health goals, focusing on leadership capacity to weave both faith and health domains? Plus, what should we not do in a pandemic and recovery period?
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