Faith-health collaboration in the United States: results from a nationally representative study.

PURPOSE: Estimate the prevalence of and identify characteristics associated with religious congregations' collaboration with health agencies.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional analyses of self-report data from the National Congregations Study, a random sample of religious congregations generated from the 1998 General Social Survey.
SETTING: United States.
SUBJECTS: Key informants from 1236 congregations. Each respondent described a single congregation. MEASURES: Respondents provided open-ended descriptions of congregational programs. Researchers coded program descriptions by content (e.g., domestic violence) and whether the program involved collaboration with a secular agency. Other congregational characteristics (e.g, denomination) were measured by validated measures and linked census tract data.
RESULTS: Overall, 11.1% of congregations participated in faith-health collaboration (FHC). Logistic regression analyses found that FHC was more common among congregations with more members, with a small proportion of congregants under 35 years, and with a senior pastor with a graduate degree. Other effects were conditional; for instance, denominational differences varied depending on urban/suburban/rural location and the proportion of low-income members.
CONCLUSION: This study provides the first national estimates of the prevalence of FHC. Such collaborative efforts may require different approaches in different areas. These results can help practitioners identify congregations that may be more willing to collaborate.