Handbook of Religion and Health

The Handbook of Religion and Health has become the seminal research text on religion, spirituality, and health, outlining a rational argument for the connection between religion and health. The Second Edition completely revises and updates the first edition. Its authors are physicians: a psychiatrist and geriatrician, a primary care physician, and a psychiatrist and theologian, all with advanced degrees in epidemiology and public health. The Second Edition surveys the historical connections between religion and health and grapples with the distinction between the terms "religion" and "spirituality" in research and clinical practice. It reviews research on religion and mental health, as well as extensive research literature on the mind-body relationship, and develops a model to explain how religious involvement may impact physical health through the mind-body mechanisms. It also explores the direct relationships between religion and physical health, covering such topics as immune and endocrine function, heart disease, hypertension and stroke, neurological disorders, cancer, and infectious diseases; and examines the consequences of illness including chronic pain, disability, and quality of life. Finally, the Handbook reviews research methods and addresses applications to clinical practice. Theological perspectives are interwoven throughout the chapters. The Handbook is the most insightful and authoritative resource available to anyone who wants to understand the relationship between religion and health.

About the Author

Harold G. Koenig is Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Ningxia Medical University in China. Tyler J. VanderWeele is John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. John R. Peteet is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital.