Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on October 23, 2006
Health Education Research 2007 22(5):619-629; doi:10.1093/her/cyl124
Faith-placed cardiovascular health promotion: a framework for contextual and organizational factors underlying program success
1 The Jacobs Neurological Institute, Buffalo General Hospital, 100 High Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
2 Research Center for Stroke & Heart Disease, The Jacobs Neurological Institute, 100 High Street, Suite C319, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
3 Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Hayes Hall, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA
* Correspondence to: Z. Sternberg. E-mail: zs2{at}buffalo.edu
The objective of this study was to assess the literature on faith-placed cardiovascular health promotion in order to construct a framework of factors meant to facilitate effective program design. Data source was empirical studies on the contextual and organizational factors underlying faith-placed cardiovascular program performance. Study inclusion criteria were papers reported from 1984 to 2003 that include contextual and organizational variables. Success factors identified in the literature fall under the following clusters: faith support, secular support, partnership (and obstacles to it), faith organization capabilities, secular organization capabilities and caring intervention. Each cluster consists of several factors, whose relative weights cannot be ascertained from the present state of the literature. These clusters of factors can be interrelated through a simple framework that is useful in program design.
Received on October 10, 2005; accepted on September 11, 2006