# Religion, Culture, Global Health: Shaping a Conversation April 21, 2016 “Religion and other types of cultural influence play a huge role in educational and health outcomes,” said Anshul Kumar, an FAS doctoral student studying the relationships between non-governmental organizations and government schools in India. Kumar was participating in an April lunch discussion on “Religion, Culture, and Global Health” sponsored by the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator. The event offered students a forum for brainstorming together on perceived gaps and opportunities in the Harvard curriculum when it comes to cross-disciplinary connections between global health, culture, and religion. “We need to train people in religious literacy,” agreed Lauren Taylor, a doctoral student at Harvard Business School who holds master’s degrees in both public health and religion. But what would such literacy look like for the health fields? And across schools, programs, and career aspirations, what related themes and issues do students see as potential for further discussion in the learning spaces? The truth is, a student may be unaware of religious and cultural connections that relate to their disciplinary interests, even at Harvard. Diana Nguyen, now on staff at the South Asia Institute, said that during her undergraduate studies in government with a secondary concentration in ethnicity, migration, and rights, she never thought to take a religious studies course, even though Harvard explicitly encourages curricular diversity. And how might such learning become integral, for example, Nguyen asked, to pre-departure training for the many students who participate in summer experiential learning opportunities? Reflecting on her own fieldwork as a Harvard Divinity School (HDS) student in Ghana, Taylor reflected on the interpretive complexities she realized during her research on “prayer camps” for the mentally ill. “People need a language to understand what they are seeing,” she emphasized. Religious literacy is not a new idea; indeed, it’s at the hub of an exciting new HarvardX course developed by the [Religious Literacy Project](https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/), directed by Professor Diane Moore. But for those studying global health, such conversations may cross different intersections, with different approaches. “Global health is difficult to describe,” said Mara Block, an FAS College Fellow in religion who taught a Fall 2015 College seminar on religion and global health. “That makes it exciting, but also raises lots of challenges—and tensions that are productive but hard to harness.” Being sensitive to cultural factors for health is not always intuitive in medicine, either, noted Sarah Philbrick, a Health, Religion & Spirituality Fellow at Dana Farber Cancer Institute preparing for medical school. “How can we use public health to understand religion and how it affects local culture and local religious resources?” The discussion was co-facilitated by Incubator staff Susan Holman and Terry Aladjem, with HDS student Alexa Kutler dynamically translating the conversation into art in real time (see image). Participants voiced many more questions than answers, with the hopes of additional sessions that will include others across the University’s cohort of students who share these interests. Some of the topics and questions for future listening sessions include what it means to build religious literacy; the question in any given setting may be as basic as “Can you find someone who is comfortable talking about religion?” Is such literacy merely a tool for manipulating patients to follow more “science-based” advice to improve health behaviors? And what about research ethics in mental health settings, such as the Ghana prayer camps? Where does religion get the blame for problems that really boil down to poverty? Does a western bias about “global health” perpetuate colonialist attitudes through unhelpful assumptions? What needs to change? And how do we change ourselves? To stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities, [join our email list](/newsletter). The meeting was part of the Incubator’s focus on inspiring innovative learning, teaching, and dialogue, through inclusive learning spaces that encourage transformative thinking across disciplines while breaking down conceptual and geographic boundaries. Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)