Harvard Health & Spirituality Study

Dr. Alexandra Shields, director of the Harvard/MGH Center on Genomics, Vulnerable Populations, and Health Disparities, is working to incorporate detailed religion and spirituality information into five national longitudinal health studies, in which a set of nearly 90 religion and spirituality metrics are being gathered for more than 5,000 participants. This added contextual data will aid researchers in determining, for instance, whether spirituality is associated with lower stress levels, which are in turn associated with better health, and in identifying other correlations between spiritual practice and health outcomes. More than 3,000 studies indicate that religion has a potentially beneficial effect on health. “For those of us interested in reducing health disparities, religion and spirituality may be particularly important,” says Dr. Shields. State of mind is important during stressful or poor living conditions. Mindfulness/meditation has been the subject of multiple studies on the effects of gene expression in immune system response pathways & stress. Religious or Spiritual devotion may work similarly. In addition to questionairres and clinical data, there are also biological measurements. Here it is proposed that spirituality be looked at through the lens of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of how genes get turned on or off by a process called DNA methylation. DNA methylation is one of the epigenetic mechanisms that changes the way genes perform under stress. When methylation goes awry, it contributes to disease. American Indians & Alaska Natives and their unique Spiritualities have been left out of studies like these. Often, Native people are prevented from bringing their spiritual practices into a health care setting. Therefore, its critical to capture and document the health benefits of such practices so that such practices can be included in the standard care of their communities. http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/rshm/people/alexandra-e-shields-phd

Study Documents: All items containing study results have undergone review and approval from the participating Tribe and Great Plains IRB.