Research Programs

The program target themes are research-focused interdisciplinary initiatives aimed to increase the quality and effectiveness of research in areas of faculty synergy and strength. All program-related research receives support from program facilities in order to maximize impact and success.

Learn more about our research themes and current projects by accessing their descriptions through the sidebar panel or through the links below.

CHAPLAINCY AND MEDICINE
The program fosters the mentorship and education of chaplain-researchers and focuses on how chaplaincy is associated with key medical outcomes.  The program goal is to grow chaplaincy researchers and a body of empirical evidence on chaplaincy services and the impact of chaplaincy spiritual care visits on patient outcomes.

RELIGION AND PUBLIC HEALTH
This research theme addresses the role that religion plays in public health, including mental and physical health outcomes, as well as the methodologies and insight that public health can offer to the study and practice of religion.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND HEALTH
This program examines the beliefs and practices of religious communities in regards to health, illness, death, and dying, and how these beliefs manifest themselves among patients and medical professionals in the process of receiving or providing care.

SPIRITUALITY AND MENTAL HEALTH
The program seeks to elucidate the relationship between spirit, mind, and body, and work toward more effective ways of upholding mental health and caring for persons who experience mental illness.

SPIRITUALITY AND CARE AT THE END OF LIFE
The program focuses on the role that spirituality plays in patients with life-threatening illness, and the role that spiritual care interventions play within healthcare, including the analysis of a variety of epidemiological outcomes of spiritual care interventions within specific patient populations and the perceptions and applications of various types of spiritual care. 

THEOLOGY, HUMAN SCIENCES, AND HEALTH
This research theme addresses the ways in which religion and spirituality shapes healthcare institutions and professional formation, as well as how various institutional structures and socialization processes can serve as barriers to spiritual care provision in the medical setting.