This special issue of Development in Practice (Volume 27, Number 5, August 2017) focuses on faith and health in development contexts. Building on efforts since the turn of the twenty-first century to fill the evidence gap that existed around the potential of religion for improved health and development, this issue looks at both ‘religion and development’ (covering the dispersed world of development practice and topics, and the validity of religious institutions as development partners) and ‘religion and public health’ (focused on development settings, and speaking to the worlds of global and public health).
The special issue includes papers on religion and health in development contexts that are representative of both these streams – which have distinguishing characteristics such as the target audience, type of study conducted, type of evidence profiled (or valued), and disciplinary discourse applied. Some of the papers have a stronger developmental orientation (Bennet et al.; Le Roux and Loots; Marshall; Karam; and Long), while others will be more familiar to a public/global health audience (Blevins et al.; Cutts and Gunderson; Dimmock et al.; Grant et al.; Hembling et al.; Ullauri and Olivier; Van Wyngaard et al.; Whyle and Olivier; and Wodon et al.). Understanding the subtly different disciplinary foundations of these papers provides the reader with a taste of the challenges and rewards of transdisciplinary and intersectional work – of the sort that is urgently needed to address the complex problems we face in health and development today
The special issue is guest edited by Dr Jill Olivier from the University of Cape Town, and two of the articles are freely available to download:
- Guest introduction: faith and health in development contexts, by Christoph Benn
- Mobilising faith-based and lay leaders to address antenatal care outcomes in northern Ghana, by John Hembling, Elena McEwan, Mohammed Ali, Anna Passaniti, Paul Armah Aryee, and Mahama Saaka
You can see a full list of articles here: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdip20/27/5?nav=tocList