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Hinduism encompasses considerable heterogeneity within its many schools of thoughts and practice. However, the common thread that binds these multiple perspectives is this handbook’s main topic of inquiry—human well-being and happiness. Hindu thought has always deliberated on the process, nature, conditions, and practices that lead to a fulfilled life. In this chapter, we begin by explaining Hinduism’s core beliefs and tenets that guide daily living. Many extant psychological publications on Hinduism explicate psychological ideas embedded in tradition. We draw comparisons between the Hindu worldview and broadly Western-based positive psychology concepts like well-being and the self. The chapter also expands on select Hindu models of human flourishing. The chapter further explains the recent empirical evidence on Hindu constructs, including well-being enhancing strategies, in relation to several positive psychology constructs such as well-being and flourishing. Finally, in the light of the reviewed empirical evidence, we discuss some directions and recommendations for future research at the intersections of Hindu religious literature and positive psychology.

For anyone interested in how people see themselves as learning from spiritual models, the Spiritual Modeling Self-Efficacy scale, Stand-Alone version (SMSE-SA) is the clear “go-to” assessment instrument. As the first psychometrically validated brief stand-alone measure of spiritual modeling processes, the SMSE-SA possesses wide-ranging applications in educational, pastoral, and clinical settings, where spiritually-focused interventions are of increasing interest. We report scale text, psychometric properties, correlates, and the underlying theory of the SMSE-SA. This is a stand-alone version of a previously published 10-item self-report assessment of a respondent’s perceived efficacy for learning from spiritual models—community-based or prominent people who for respondents exemplify spiritual qualities such as compassion, pro-social self-control, or faith. SMSE-SA total scores from a sample of 284 California college students demonstrated patterns of correlation supporting convergent and discriminant validity, demographic differences in expected directions, and substantial individual heterogeneity. The SMSE-SA has also shown good 7-week test/retest reliability (r = 0.77, N = 60). Most SMSE-SA properties correspond to properties previously observed for the non-stand-alone scale (SMSE-I), though the SMSE-SA alone has shown a modest correlation with socially desirable responding. The SMSE-SA is comprised of two correlated 5-item subscales for community-based and prominent models (internal reliabilities alpha >0.85). Subscale scores correlate positively with measures of many constructs held to be learnable through spiritual models. Previous randomized studies of college students have demonstrated that SMSE scores can be enhanced by psychosocial interventions. The psychometric properties and stand-alone utility of the SMSE-SA make it the go-to measure of spiritual modeling processes.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between individually measured religion and/or spirituality (R/S), and mortality, physical morbidity, and disability. Most studies have relied on frameworks that recognize a potential causative influence of R/S on health that is mediated through factors such as health behaviors, social support, mental health, and distinctively religious/spiritual methods of coping with stress.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on the associations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and public health education, promotion, and intervention – the public health subfield concentrations of about one-sixth of public health students nationwide. We discuss literature related to health programming at R/S sites, spiritually tailored treatments in healthcare settings, R/S interventions in workplaces, and meditation and mindfulness as spiritual interventions.

This chapter is the first of thirteen reviews in this volume providing a public health perspective on the empirical evidence relating religion and spirituality (R/S) to physical and mental health. This chapter emphasizes an essentially epidemiologic perspective, reviewings evidence bearing on a “generic” model of how an individual’s engagement in religion/spirituality may causally affect that individual’s health through pathways that include health behaviors, social connections and support, ability to draw upon distinctively religious/spiritual methods of coping, and mental health. In US-based and often in international and non-Western samples, R/S factors tend to correlate with healthier profiles on social connections, health behaviors, substance abuse, mental health, and psychological well-being. R/S coping is multidimensional and adds incremental predictiveness beyond measures of secular coping. Hundreds of studies link positive R/S coping to better adjustment, and negative forms of R/S coping to worse adjustment.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and environmental health, a public health subfield and field of concentration that draws slightly less than one-tenth of public health students nationwide.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and infectious diseases, issues especially relevant to the laboratory-based field of concentration of 2%–3% of public health students nationwide. We discuss six lines of R/S-health evidence pertaining to immune competence , immunization, infection risk behavior, rates of infection, adherence to treatments for infections, and programs for prevention or treatment.

This chapter describes background and methods used in a set of 13 empirical review chapters contained in Part I of this volume (chapters “ Model of Individual Health Effects from Religion/Spirituality: Supporting Evidence”, “ Religious/Spiritual Effects on Physical Morbidity and Mortality”, Social and Community-Level Factors in Health Effects from Religion/Spirituality”, “ Social Identity and Discrimination in Religious/Spiritual Influences on Health”, “ Environmental Health Sciences, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Infectious Diseases, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Public Health Nutrition, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Maternal/Child Health, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Health Policy and Management, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Public Health Education, Promotion, and Intervention: Relevance of Religion and Spirituality”, “ Mental Health, Religion, and Spirituality”, “ Clinical Practice, Religion, and Spirituality” and “ Weighing the Evidence: What is Revealed by 100+ Meta-Analyses and Systematic Reviews of Religion/Spirituality and Health?”).

This chapter describes a compact (9 week, 18 hour) evidence-based course on religious/spiritual (R/S) factors and public health that has been offered with success for nearly a decade at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. We describe a logical sequence of topics and readings that convey the public health importance and key ideas of the R/S-health field, while maintaining respectful stance toward diverse student beliefs. Weekly readings initially focus on (1) conceptual introductions; (2) examples of empirical health research on religious involvement; and (3) examples of empirical health research on spiritual practices. Attention then turns to (4) mechanisms underlying R/S-health effects, (5) weighing the evidence through meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and in other ways, (6) clinical applications, (7) public health applications, and finally (8) worldviews and science/religion dialogue. Pedagogy, assignments, grading, and student reactions are discussed, along with the role that similar courses might play in school-level strategies for teaching about religious/spiritual factors and public health.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S), social identity, and discrimination by race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and religious tradition. We also examine health-supportive (salutogenic) processes arising from social identities linked to each characteristic. Religion and spirituality are conceived as evolving over time and residing at both collective and individual levels. Each type of discrimination has been linked to poorer health outcomes.

This chapter reviews the more than 100 meta-analyses and systematic reviews of relations between religion/spirituality (R/S) and health that have been published in refereed journals, a far larger number than is generally recognized. The 118 published reviews identified by 2017 were categorized as quantitative meta-analyses (n = 33), qualitative meta-syntheses (n = 7), meta-analyses of case studies (n = 1), or simple systematic reviews (n = 77). They addressed a wide range of substantive topics relevant to every major public health subfield, and incorporated a mean of 33.5 studies per review. Collectively authored by more than 200 distinct individuals, the reviews were published in 83 different journals, 20 in the category of public health. Multiple reviews were published by 14 journals, a majority possessing impact factors above 2.0. Reviewing empirical studies of R/S-health is clearly a very broad-based enterprise not limited to a few individuals or journals. Collectively, the reviews greatly strengthen the case, based on Hill’s criteria, that R/S exerts a causative influence on health. The case for causal influence may now be compelling, and in most cases R/S involvement is associated with better health, although negative associations also exist. Further investigation is warranted to explore the possibility that R/S is a “fundamental cause” of health that maintains an association even when intervening mediating pathways change. This possibility is consistent with the dynamic understandings of R/S presented elsewhere in this volume.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on religion and spirituality (R/S) as factors relevant to maternal and child health, the field of concentration of about 3% of public health students nationwide.

This present chapter concludes a 28 chapter volume on the relevance of religion and spirituality (R/S) to the field of public health. The volume contains 13 empirical reviews of R/S-health relations (Part I), two chapters addressing practical implications of R/S for public health (Part II), and eight chapters on how R/S factors have been incorporated into public health education and training offered at US-based schools and colleges of public health (Part III).

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on religion and spirituality (R/S) as factors relevant to public health nutrition, the field of concentration of about 3% of public health students nationwide. We discuss R/S-health evidence pertaining to fruit, vegetable, and fat intake, overweight status, eating disorders , and fasting and cholesterol.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on religious and spiritual (R/S) factors in clinical medicine. Conducting spiritual assessments is required in some settings by The Joint Commission for accreditation of healthcare organizations. Available published literature suggests that several dimensions of R/S predict better adherence to HIV treatment.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and variables of interest to health policy and management, a public health subfield of concentration for about one-fifth of public health students nationwide. R/S factors may affect health through pathways including health behaviors, social support, psycholog ical states, and religious/spiritual coping, either favorably or adversely.

To date, most empirical research on religion/spirituality and health, like most other health research, has been conducted in the United States or other western countries. Earlier sections of this volume have explicated the public health releva nce of religion and spirituality with a corresponding western emphasis. But religion and spirituality are very much global phenomena, and their connections to health possess global relevance. To put religion/spirituality and public health issues in global context, this chapter undertakes four tasks. First, we set out the emerging relevance of religion/spirituality to global agencies and organizations such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Second, we briefly note conceptual frameworks articulated earlier in this volume that possess global relevance and are corroborated by findings from outside western societies. Third, to offer a ground-level view of how R/S and public health profoundly intersect, we offer six evidence-informed anecdotes or “snapshots” of such intersections: (1) Health assets and the global relevance of salutogenic approaches; (2) Religion as both a problem and a solution with regard to female genital mutilation; (3) Religion as a doorway to understanding multiple worldviews in the Ebola epidemic; (4) The complex interplay of religion and HIV in Africa; (5) Religion as a purveyor of persuasive health information, and a valuable collaborator; (6) Religion and the global need for palliative care.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S), and mental health, a topic of increasing interest to public health.

This chapter introduces the volume’s Part III, which contains chapter-length portraits of how seven top schools of public health are addressing religious/spiritual (R/S) factors in their educational offerings. This chapter also reports findings from national surveys of public health graduate students (n = 980) and public health school leaders (e.g., deans, n = 24).The history of public health teaching about religious/spiritual factors can be traced back several decades, but only now, with the emergence of a large and rapidly expanding inter-disciplinary empirical research literature on R/S and health, does the topic appear poised and ready for widespread inclusion in public health education. Completed surveys about R/S and health were obtained from 980 public health graduate students from 24 US-based schools and colleges of public health. A majority (53%) believed that R/S-health topics received too little coverage in their public health education. Respondents who had received more frequent educational exposure to evidence about relations of R/S factors with disease and longevity were significantly more likely to believe that R/S factors should receive coverage in public health training that is similar to the coverage of other well-established health factors. Similarly, of 24 deans or dean-designated respondents to a public health school leader survey, a large majority (20/24) agreed that evidence about R/S-health relations should be included in public health education. Enunciation of formal professional competency lists would be premature. But many resources are available to academic public health educators who wish to start new efforts or refine existing ones, including the seven following chapters.

This chapter introduces the book Why Religion and Spirituality Matter for Public Health: Evidence, Implications, and Resources. More than 3000 empirical studies 100 systematic reviews have been published on relations of religion and/or spirituality (R/S) with health, but R/S factors remain neglected in public health teaching and research. R.S reflects ultimate concern that taps deep motivations, and R/S typically encourages stewardship of health, so its health-relevance is unsurprising from a behavioral motivation perspective. R/S engagement also commonly fosters social support and access to distinctive methods of coping with stress, elements of a “generic model” of how R/S influences health. Predominantly favorable relations suggest that R/S might be a fundamental cause of health, but R/S factors also sometimes correlate unfavorably with risk factors or poorer health. Part I of this volume contains 14 chapters that review evidence on R/S-health relations from the perspectives of major subfields of public health that include social factors, nutrition, infectious diseases, environmental health, maternal/child health, health policy and management, public health education and promotion, mental health, and clinical practice. Part II contains two chapters that address implications for public health practice, emphasizing community-based health promotion, health policy advocacy, and healthcare systems and management. The eight chapters in Part III offer resources for public health educators, including narratives of how R/S-health relations have been taught in schools of public health at universities that include Emory, Harvard, University of California at Berkeley, Boston University, University of Michigan, Drexel University, and University of Illinois at Chicago. A concluding chapter offers international perspectives.

This chapter introduces a set of 13 empirical review chapters contained in Part I of this volume. Each review focuses on relations between religious and spiritual (R/S) factors and health variables. This present chapter explains the reviews’ collective purpose, distinctive public health focus, and common structure. The first of these reviews (chapter “ Model of Individual Health Effects from Religion/Spirituality: Supporting Evidence”) examines evidence that supports a widely used generic model of the effects of R/S on individual health. Next is a review of R/S effects on morbidity and mortality (chapter “ Religious/Spiritual Effects on Physical Morbidity and Mortality”). After that, the next two review chapters focus on R/S and social factors, such as socioeconomic status and income inequality (chapter “ Social and Community-Level Factors in Health Effects from Religion/Spirituality”) and social identity and discrimination (chapter “ Social Identity and Discrimination in Religious/Spiritual Influences on Health”). Then, the next seven review chapters examine evidence relevant to major public health subfields: nutrition, infectious diseases, environmental health, maternal/child health, health policy and management, public health education and promotion, mental health, and clinical practice. Drawing on data from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), each subfield is contextualized in relation to proportions of enrolled students in US schools of public health.

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and social factors. Religion and spirituality are conceived as evolving over time and residing at both collective and individual levels.