The Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society will coordinate the production of case study resources for Public Health and Health Sciences students.
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An Elon University faculty team has received a $60,000 Faith & Health Campus Grant from Interfaith America to support an innovative project that promotes awareness of how religious diversity impacts healthcare space and medical decision-making. The project will create eight video simulations featuring case studies featuring patients from diverse faith backgrounds, giving health sciences and public health students practical tools to better understand how spirituality, culture, and religious identity influence care. The videos are being developed through a collaboration between Elon’s Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, the School of Health Sciences, the Department of Public Health and several local faith communities.
Interfaith America is a national nonprofit dedicated to fostering cooperation among people of different faiths and worldviews for the common good. Founded in 2002 as the Interfaith Youth Core, the organization equips leaders across higher education, civic life, and various professions with resources, training, and programs to unlock the potential of America’s religious diversity.
This work aligns with Interfaith America’s mission to integrate religious diversity into healthcare in order to strengthen public health outcomes. Through its Faith & Health Campus Grants, Interfaith America supports cross-disciplinary teams that embed interfaith competency across health-related curricula, build sustainable partnerships with community organizations and deepen public understanding of religion as a social determinant of health.
The Elon project team brings together expertise in public health, nursing, interreligious studies, and global religion. Molly Green (Public Health), focuses on how social environments shape health outcomes among Middle East/North African (MENA) populations. Jeanmarie Koonts (Nursing) has more than 35 years of experience in maternal-child nursing and is a founding faculty member of Elon’s Nursing program. She led the creation of the Bridging Faith and Health certificate program in the School of Health Sciences. Helen Orr (Religious Studies), specializes in interreligious studies and religious conflict in the Balkans. She developed and hosts the online certificate course “Multifaith Literacy for Professional Environments” on the ElonNext platform. Brian Pennington, a historian of modern religion in India and a leading scholar in interreligious studies, directs Elon’s Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society. Orr, Koonts, and Pennington all served as 2024 Faith and Health Fellows with Interfaith America.
Together, the team will produce publicly accessible educational materials and will incorporate the simulations into a new Core Curriculum course, “The Spirit of Health: Exploring Faith, Culture, and Care.” They also plan to publish scholarly work and present at national conferences to share insights from developing and testing these innovative learning tools.
