Religion & Public Health Education, Research, Policy, and Practice

Religion is too often relegated to the “private” domain in public health discourse, treated as irrelevant to the design of systems, policies, and institutions. This project challenges that reductive framing. We are developing a 'religion lens' for public health research and practice that makes visible how religious traditions, institutions, and actors shape governance, education, and everyday public health policies and practices — especially in the United States of America. By interrogating public health policies through this lens, we seek to move beyond secular assumptions that obscure religion’s influence in the public sphere. This project positions religion not as an afterthought but as a vital dimension of understanding and shaping public health—whether through systems of governance, ethical frameworks, or community-level interventions.