The relationship between health, religion and spirituality is an issue of particular concern to Harvard; in fact, it has a project specifically dedicated to it titled Initiative on health, religion and spirituality. A line of interdisciplinary research in which empirical specialists, academics and theologians seek – through strict methods of scientific and socio-scientific analysis – to understand the way body, mind and spirit interact to relieve illness and promote human well-being.
That is why the new study Spirituality in Serious Illness and Health (Spirituality in Serious Illness and Health), led by researchers from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, it only confirms something that the university has been insisting on for years: The beneficial effect of spirituality and religion on health cannot be ignored.
So much so, that these latest findings, recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), leave no room for doubt in the final conclusion: “Spirituality should be incorporated into the care of both serious illnesses and health in general.” But why? Among other things, because as Tyler VanderWeele, one of the co-authors of the study and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School, stated: “Focusing on spirituality in health care It means caring for the whole person, not only to his illness.”
Link between spirituality and health
More than 15,000 articles published between January 2000 and April 2022 (of which 586 met the strict requirements of the study) were identified and analyzed by the researchers for evidence demonstrating the link between spirituality and health.
“This study represents the most rigorous and complete systematic analysis of modern literature on health and spirituality to date,” said lead author Tracy Balboni, PhD, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School.
Following this detailed look at hundreds of studies involving thousands of patients, a structured, multidisciplinary group of experts, called the Delphi panel, reviewed the strongest collective evidence on the Benefits of Nurturing Patients’ Spirituality as Part of Medical Care (16 evidence statements were developed), and offered several recommendations, such as raising awareness among health professionals or incorporating education on spiritual care in the formation of interdisciplinary teams who care for people with serious illnesses.
