Supporting Faith-Based Communities Through and Beyond the Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread and notable effects to the physical and mental health of communities across New York City with disproportionate suffering Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino communities alongside additional stressors such as racism and economic hardship. This report describes the adaptation of a previously successful evidence-based community engagement health education program for the deployment of resilience promoting workshop program in faith-based organizations in BIPOC communities in New York City. From June 2021 to June 2022, nine faith-based organizations implemented 58 workshops to 1,101 non-unique workshop participants. Most of the workshops were delivered online with more women (N = 803) than men (N = 298) participating. All organizations completed the full curriculum; the workshop focused on self-care and physical fitness was repeated most frequently (N = 13). Participants in the workshops ranged from 4 to 73 per meeting and were largely female. The Building Community Resilience Project is an easy and effective way to modify an existing, evidence-based community health education program to address new and relevant health needs such as resilience and stress amidst the COVID-19 pandemic among faith communities serving BIPOC populations. More research is needed regarding the impact of the workshops as well as adaptability for other faith traditions.

Keywords: Community engagement; Faith-based organizations; Resilience; Under-resourced communities.