Positive social interaction is connected to health and well-being, studies show. Nearly 40 churches take part in an Indiana University program that builds connections with older adults.
Photo by FG Trade, courtesy iStockphoto
“Many patients who may in fact have low trust in the health care system may have much higher trust in their own faith community.”
Armed with a smile and offer to chat or grab a coffee, Darnice Miles is helping lonely people connect.
“There’s a lot of them out there (who are) lonely,” Miles, a member of True Tried Missionary Baptist Church in Indianapolis, told The Nation’s Health.
The Indiana University Health’s Congregational Care Network links Miles and other volunteer “connectors” to patients age 50 and older whom social workers and university chaplains identify as experiencing loneliness and isolation.
The Office of the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness and isolation an epidemic in a 2023 advisory. The office connected social interaction with health and well-being. The issue is an even bigger risk factor for low-income Black and Hispanic older adults, who are more likely to develop chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, and lack health care access.
“Many patients who may in fact have low trust in the health care system may have much higher trust in their own faith community,” Alexia Torke, MD, MS, a professor of medicine and director of Indiana University’s Daniel F. Evans Center for Spiritual and Religious Values in Health Care, told The Nation’s Health. “Partnering with these communities is a way to engage patients in the way they might find more acceptable, that they might be more open to, and so we’d be able to deliver services to people through trusted community organizations.”
The network model calls for a social worker or community health worker to notify a chaplain if they have talked with a patient who is feeling lonely or isolated. After the chaplain and patient meet, the chaplain helps place the patient at a congregation that will pair them with a connector — a volunteer who checks in with them regularly either over the phone or in-person for at least an hour a week.
Connectors rely on social workers to share resources that can benefit patients, such as reliable transportation and access to food pantries. If a patient has an issue a connector is not able to handle, such as a behavioral health problem, then a social worker can step in to get the patient the care they need.
The idea of connecting a patient with a church congregation to bridge gaps in clinical care is not new. The model gained momentum at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee, and through FaithHealth NC at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. When Rev. John Foster, DMin, BCC, a former director of FaithHealth Chaplaincy and Clinical Ministries, brought the model to Indiana University, he was asked to narrow the focus.
“After a conversation with lots of people, we decided pretty quickly to look at issues of loneliness and isolation because what chaplains know how to do is to walk with those who are hurting,” Foster, vice president of spiritual care, chaplaincy services and congregational partnerships, told The Nation’s Health.
Since launching in 2020, the network has expanded to include nearly 40 congregations and is already making a difference.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, authored by Torke, looked at over 300 patients paired with connectors for 90 days across nearly 30 congregations in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana. It found that patient emergency room visits dropped 32%. And outpatient care increased 11%. Patients reported feeling less lonely.
Torke and colleagues will be discussing the Congregational Care Network during a session on aging and loneliness at APHA’s Annual Meeting and Expo on Sunday, Nov. 2. For more on the scientific session, number 2139, see the meeting program at www.apha.org/program.
Learn more about the care network at www.regenstrief.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
