Sketching the landscape: a scoping review of partnerships at the intersection of faith and health

Background

Much consideration has been given to community-level partnerships in public health. Faith communities are important systems of connection and support for many people but may be overlooked as public health partners in Australia and the United Kingdom. Efforts to enhance community health through partnerships between faith communities and health and wellbeing professionals and organisations have been explored in recent academic literature. Future faith-health partnerships could be enhanced through an examination of the key challenges and facilitators discussed in these articles. This review examined recent literature to determine what health issues were being addressed through partnerships with faith communities, what terminology was used in the literature, where the research was conducted, and what gaps exist in the research.

Methods Online databases were searched to identify literature published between 2018 and October 2024. Of these, 45 articles were selected for their relevance to the scoping review aims.

Results

Faith-health partnerships implemented health interventions for a range of health issues and populations. Most academic literature from countries culturally similar to Australia and the UK featured research from the USA. Partnerships tended to be described rather than defined, and a range of barriers and facilitators featured in the research.

Conclusions

The facilitators identified could be useful to those wanting to establish faith-health partnerships, but more research is needed into how these challenges and facilitators function. Additionally, research is needed to understand how faith-health partnerships operate in countries outside the USA.