Pagan Health Survey: The worldviews and health care choices of Wiccans, Druids, and Witches

Pagans comprise a small but rapidly growing umbrella of minority Nature-centered religions, including various traditions of Wicca, Druidism, and Witchcraft. Pagan worldviews and religious practices, significantly different from the Abrahamic religions, can generate points of contention between mainstream biomedical treatments and public health policies and Pagan patients' beliefs about health care. The approach to the research was grounded in the fields of medical and cognitive anthropology. The Pagan Health Survey utilized a mixed-methods approach, including ethnographic field research in the Pagan community, focus groups of Pagan health professionals and clergy, and a community-wide (laity and solitary practitioners) survey on Pagan views of health, health care choices, and health-related spiritual practices. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected on a representative sample (for both focus groups and survey) and analyzed through ethnographic decision modeling and cultural model theory. The results of the Pagan Health Survey indicated that there are significant differences between Pagan views of physical and mental health, health care treatment options, and health care practitioners and the tenets of biomedicine and treatments available. This is particularly apparent in mental health, where substantial discrepancies in views of mental wellness combined with non-mainstream spiritual practices can lead to patients feeing misunderstood. The overarching holistic worldview, which sees health as an integrative endeavor (both in unifying body, mind, and spirit and in unifying environmental and personal health), can cause dissatisfaction with standard health care options and public health policies and lead to seeking alternative treatments and practitioners.