Placing the US Federal Investment in Religion, Spirituality, and Health Research in Context: A Systematic Review and Comparison with Social Support and Optimism Funding Levels.

Publisher: Springer Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 2985199R Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-6571 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00224197 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Relig Health

Publication: New York, NY : Springer
Original Publication: New York : Academy of Religion and Mental Health.

Social Support* ; Spirituality* ; Optimism*/psychology; Humans ; United States ; Financing, Government/statistics & numerical data ; Research Support as Topic/statistics & numerical data ; Biomedical Research/economics

Religion and spirituality (R/S) have been linked to better physical and mental health. The US government has funded several research studies that include a focus on R/S but the amount of support over the last several years appears to be declining. To better understand these funding trends for R/S and health research, we chose relevant comparisons from projects that include a focus on social support and optimism. We identified total amount of funding, change in funding patterns over time, and characteristics of funded projects from a large database of US research projects (Federal RePORTER). We reviewed 5093 projects for social support and 6030 projects for optimism before narrowing the number of eligible studies to 170 and 13, respectively. Social support projects received the largest investment of $205 million dollars. Funded awards for social support and optimism remained stable over time while R/S decreased (p = 0.01), intervention research was more characteristic and studies of African-American/Black participants were less characteristic of funded projects in social support than of R/S (ps < 0.001). Future research for R/S and health would likely benefit from continued focus on minority communities and on identifying and developing appropriate interventions to support individual and community health and well-being.
(© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

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61127 John Templeton Foundation

Keywords: Health; Optimism; Religion; Social support; Spirituality; Systematic review

Date Created: 20240103 Date Completed: 20240807 Latest Revision: 20240807

20240808

10.1007/s10943-023-01973-7

38169027