Abstract:
Religious institutions are linked to better human health, for entire communities, not just people who attend religious services. Religious institutions address structural inequalities through food assistance programs to stem food insecurity. Many provide social services that fill gaps of unequitable health care access for socioeconomically marginalized populations. The physical space of religious institutions facilitates social cohesion among people, which reduces risk factors such as social isolation that are linked to poor health. There is a growing trend of religious institutions closing, long before the COVID-19 pandemic. In this seminar, I describe the epidemiology of the problem in New York City and discuss empirical associations between church closing and health outcomes. I conclude with a discussion of how to use these data to inform equitable policies to mitigate collateral effects that religious institution closings have on vulnerable populations.
Dr. Ransome completed a Bachelor of Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, an MPH from the University of Michigan, a DrPH from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and a postdoc at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. He is the Founder and Director of Studies on Religion, Ethnicity, Technology, and Community Health (STRETCH) Lab at Yale.
