Spiritual Care and Community Wellness: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Explore Chaplains’ Integration in Community Health Initiatives

Religious organizations have influenced parts of the history of healthcare in the United States. Whether at the local faith community level or national religious bodies, faith communities and health systems have explored partnerships to connect health service delivery and promote population health in its complexity. The changes to health policy in the past decades have fueled how health systems dedicate financial and tangible resources to improving the health of their local communities. Hospitals also increasingly hire and employ chaplains–professional spiritual care providers with extensive graduate and clinical education. The present explanatory mixed-methods study explored the integration of these chaplains in their health systems’ community health and wellness initiatives. The findings highlight that chaplains’ activities focus on social connection and improving healthcare access and quality. Chaplains highlighted how they use their interpersonal skills to build rapport and trust with communities, which may provide an additional resource for health systems looking to expand their impact within the local community. That possibility, however, comes with caution as chaplaincy education will need to include population health if the profession considers these activities core to their arena of expertise.