Establishing Effective Partnerships with Faith-based Organizations through Health Policy

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) can play a vital role in facilitating health programming.  For this reason, this study examined the relationship of church infrastructure (physical structure, personnel, funding, and social/cultural support) and the frequency of health programming as a predictor of readiness.  A survey was administered to 108 churches to identify the presence or absence of church infrastructure and the occurrence of health activities.  Study findings revealed that churches with more infrastructure tended to engage in more health promotion programming.  Churches with less infrastructure tended to engage in less health promotion programming.  These findings can help direct the development of health policies for the establishment of partnerships with FBOs to promote holistic wellness, reduce healthcare cost and improve the health of the hard-to-reach population.  These policies can also guide health program planners, researchers and FBOs to the type of collaboration that can be most useful.  In turn, these policies can prove effective for sustaining partnerships for the development, implementation and evaluation of health promotion programming.