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Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The success of public health interventions is highly dependent on the compliance of the general population. State authorities often implement policies without consulting representatives of faith-based communities, thereby overlooking potential implications of public health measures for these parts o...

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Autores principales: Dascalu, Stefan, Flammer, Patrik G., Ghafari, Mahan, Henson, Shaun C., Nascimento, Roger, Bonsall, Michael B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8717894/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34976927
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.768091
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author Dascalu, Stefan
Flammer, Patrik G.
Ghafari, Mahan
Henson, Shaun C.
Nascimento, Roger
Bonsall, Michael B.
author_facet Dascalu, Stefan
Flammer, Patrik G.
Ghafari, Mahan
Henson, Shaun C.
Nascimento, Roger
Bonsall, Michael B.
author_sort Dascalu, Stefan
collection PubMed
description The success of public health interventions is highly dependent on the compliance of the general population. State authorities often implement policies without consulting representatives of faith-based communities, thereby overlooking potential implications of public health measures for these parts of society. Although ubiquitous, these challenges are more readily observable in highly religious states. Romania serves as an illustrative example for this, as recent data identify it as the most religious country in Europe. In this paper, we discuss the contributions of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), the major religious institution in the country, to the national COVID-19 mitigation efforts. We present not only the positive outcomes of productive consultations between public health authorities and religious institutions but also the detrimental impact of unidirectional communication. Our work highlights that an efficient dialogue with faith-based communities can greatly enhance the results of public health interventions. As the outlined principles apply to a variety of contexts, the lessons learned from this case study can be generalized into a set of policy recommendations for the betterment of future public health initiatives worldwide.
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spelling pubmed-87178942021-12-31 Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic Dascalu, Stefan Flammer, Patrik G. Ghafari, Mahan Henson, Shaun C. Nascimento, Roger Bonsall, Michael B. Front Public Health Public Health The success of public health interventions is highly dependent on the compliance of the general population. State authorities often implement policies without consulting representatives of faith-based communities, thereby overlooking potential implications of public health measures for these parts of society. Although ubiquitous, these challenges are more readily observable in highly religious states. Romania serves as an illustrative example for this, as recent data identify it as the most religious country in Europe. In this paper, we discuss the contributions of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), the major religious institution in the country, to the national COVID-19 mitigation efforts. We present not only the positive outcomes of productive consultations between public health authorities and religious institutions but also the detrimental impact of unidirectional communication. Our work highlights that an efficient dialogue with faith-based communities can greatly enhance the results of public health interventions. As the outlined principles apply to a variety of contexts, the lessons learned from this case study can be generalized into a set of policy recommendations for the betterment of future public health initiatives worldwide. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8717894/ /pubmed/34976927 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.768091 Text en Copyright © 2021 Dascalu, Flammer, Ghafari, Henson, Nascimento and Bonsall. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Dascalu, Stefan
Flammer, Patrik G.
Ghafari, Mahan
Henson, Shaun C.
Nascimento, Roger
Bonsall, Michael B.
Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort engaging religious institutions and faith-based communities in public health initiatives: a case study of the romanian orthodox church during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8717894/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34976927
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.768091
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