Religion and health, and the search for common ground

As a global community we have never been more interconnected. Depressingly, floods and intense heat (doi:10.1136/bmj.p1647) link more and more of us together through shared experience of the climate emergency.1 Polarisation and divisiveness are also growing in tandem, at times invoking religious differences.Religion is often considered divisive with respect to sexual and reproductive health and other health areas, but Ellen Idler and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-076817) conceptualise religion as a determinant of health with “real, contradictory, and complex” effects.2 Religion as a social determinant is unique in its ability to both benefit and harm health, and much of religion’s “public health ‘good’ may come with complications,” they write. Evidence supports a protective effect of religious beliefs and affiliations on individuals’ health, but at community and country level the effects of religion on health are mixed. Whereas religious leaders were instrumental in containing the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa and encouraged covid…
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