Traditional role, collapse and rebirth of faith-based efforts in health care

Faith has played an intricate role in the delivery of health care. A historical overview of faith-based institution involvement in health promoting efforts is retrospectively examined with the intent of developing a better understanding of successful implementation of future programs. An exploratory, descriptive case study surrounding a faith-based medical clinic was carried out to determine the population’s willingness to use the free faith-based medical clinic. It was postulated that individuals without insurance would be more likely to use the faith based clinic because they would have an increase in perceived benefits, a decrease in perceived barriers and an increase in self-efficacy, as part of the Health Belief Model. A total of 84 surveys were collected, with 88% (n = 74) insured households and 12% (n = 10) uninsured households. There was a significant association between being uninsured and being willing to use the free faith based medical clinic but the other variables were not predictive. Utilization of the social ecological model was examined to determine how to best support the uninsured, while bolstering the health care safety net