By Zoe Beketova
Churches famously preach to their choirs, but a new dashboard developed at Yale School of Public Health aims to measure how they matter in their communities. Dr. Yusuf Ransome, DrPH, MPH, associate professor of public health (social and behavioral sciences) and director of the Social Connectedness and Health Lab (SOCAH), developed and demonstrated the dashboard at the inaugural Faith, Place & Health event at Yale on June 18th.
“When churches close their doors, it can affect community members regardless of their belief systems or whether they are members of the church,” said Ransome, who studies how church attendance can improve health through social connectedness. “Churches often house food pantries and provide other services that benefit the community, such as health screenings.”
Documentation of where churches have been closing has not previously been available. The dashboard will let people in the United States visualize the geographic patterns of church closures and the rate of closures per 10,000 people, drawing on county-level data. It also includes other social determinants of health such as levels of education and poverty.
The number of church closures is based on business data obtained by religious organizations between 2001 and 2021. Closures are identified for specific periods using coding conceptualized by Ransome and built with support from the Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions, and Yale Public Health Data Science Data Equity.
Ransome said the dashboard should be released for general use in December, by which time it should also be searchable by zip code.
The Faith, Place & Health event brought together more than 80 attendees interested in addressing the challenges created by church closures, which have increased in the last few decades. An expert panel discussed issues facing churches and how faith communities could benefit by rethinking their purpose. The panel’s moderator, Kimberly Arnold Jenkins, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, asked “When a church closes, what really goes away?”
Panelists responded by noting that over 60% of food pantries are located in churches and that 87% of people served by programs housed in churches are not church members. One panelist, Rev. Cleo Graham of Faith Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut, noted that the church hosts blood pressure screenings in partnership with local nursing students, calling it an example of the church “preaching on both diabetes and Jesus.”
Bob Jaeger, co-founder & president of Partners for Sacred Places, said that, “Historic congregations in America's urban centers contribute around $1.7 million to their local economy each year, according to new research on the economic impact of sacred places.”
The event also featured community-led brainstorming about how to help churches survive.
“Faith is central to the health and wellbeing of our communities, but it is under-looked in public health,” said Dr. Trace Kershaw, PhD, chair of YSPH’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Department.