PUBH 510 - Religion, Spirituality, and Health

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Offered as needed. Religion has long been known to influence our behavior and spiritual health. Only in the past two decades have we researched and learned that religious participation can impact an individual’s physical and mental health. The next logical step would be, if religion and spirituality can affect an individual’s physical and mental health, then it could also affect public health. This course will examine psychological concepts of human behavior, apply these concepts, and thereby understand human behavior in the context of religion, individual health, and public health. We will use the framework of the Biblical nature of humans as our guide through this course. In this course we will ask questions like: Under what conditions does religion promote health, under what conditions can religion harm well-being, what psychological concepts contribute to spiritual, physical, and mental health, and how does the biopsychosocial-spiritual aspect of individual health influence public health? 