God as the Doctor for African Americans Dealing with Diabetes
Hester Oberman, Ph. D., Medical Humanities Liaison and Lecturer Religious Studies, University of Arizona
This paper looks at the discrepancy between scientific accounts and normative religious views of health in African American communities dealing with diabetes. While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life. Compared to other groups, African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes with high death rates. Diabetes is a chronic life long illness that affects everyday life. There is no cure but advances in medicine have made it a possible reality to live with the disease in control and avoiding it’s devastating complications – however to live a life with diabetes demands many constraints in daily life: the need to monitor food intake, exercise, and pricking a finger often several times daily, plus the need for a multitude of medications, often even insulin injections. To be willing to comply requires a trust in the medical community and the treating physician that all this medical care is going to work in terms of better long term health outcomes. The fact that the medical results are not tangible immediately, faith in a better future comes into play. Of interest is to investigate how Religion and Spirituality (R/S) -which also uses trust and faith in intangible long term outcomes- interacts with contemporary medicine at this level. R/S is instrumental to coping with health, yet belief in an all providing and healing God can also stand in the way of seeking out medical care. Though recent studies examine patient’s use of R/S as coping strategy for diabetes management and demonstrate faith-based diabetes education can improve self-care behaviors and glycemic control, why it works is still unclear.
From the perspective of Religious Studies scholarship and specifically psychology of religion and hermeneutics, a review of quantitative medical research studies will be reviewed to contextualize two in-depth qualitative case studies of diabetes healthcare workers who are active in the African American community of faith. The focus is on manner in which these health professionals use R/S in their work in the medical field and utilize faith-based approaches towards practices of caring and healing of diabetic patients.
The core questions are to evaluate how these specific African American Baptist religious communities bridge the gap between believing in Judeo-Christian God caring and intervening on a personal level and the scientific medical approach. Specifically, if only God heals, what is the role of medicine?
• What are the specific theological conflicts that arise out a strong faith tradition that believe in God as sole healer?
• How do health care professionals integrate the two different paradigms of scientific medicine and normative religion?
• Specifically how do healthcare workers utilize their faith and/or religious tradition when it comes to helping patients with diabetes?
• Does the faith of a healthcare professional affect diabetes self-management?
• What is the role of the minister as an authoritative voice in delivery of healthcare?
This paper looks at the discrepancy between scientific accounts and normative religious views of health in African American communities dealing with diabetes. While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life. Compared to other groups, African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes with high death rates. Diabetes is a chronic life long illness that affects everyday life. There is no cure but advances in medicine have made it a possible reality to live with the disease in control and avoiding it’s devastating complications – however to live a life with diabetes demands many constraints in daily life: the need to monitor food intake, exercise, and pricking a finger often several times daily, plus the need for a multitude of medications, often even insulin injections. To be willing to comply requires a trust in the medical community and the treating physician that all this medical care is going to work in terms of better long term health outcomes. The fact that the medical results are not tangible immediately, faith in a better future comes into play. Of interest is to investigate how Religion and Spirituality (R/S) -which also uses trust and faith in intangible long term outcomes- interacts with contemporary medicine at this level. R/S is instrumental to coping with health, yet belief in an all providing and healing God can also stand in the way of seeking out medical care. Though recent studies examine patient’s use of R/S as coping strategy for diabetes management and demonstrate faith-based diabetes education can improve self-care behaviors and glycemic control, why it works is still unclear.
From the perspective of Religious Studies scholarship and specifically psychology of religion and hermeneutics, a review of quantitative medical research studies will be reviewed to contextualize two in-depth qualitative case studies of diabetes healthcare workers who are active in the African American community of faith. The focus is on manner in which these health professionals use R/S in their work in the medical field and utilize faith-based approaches towards practices of caring and healing of diabetic patients.
The core questions are to evaluate how these specific African American Baptist religious communities bridge the gap between believing in Judeo-Christian God caring and intervening on a personal level and the scientific medical approach. Specifically, if only God heals, what is the role of medicine?
• What are the specific theological conflicts that arise out a strong faith tradition that believe in God as sole healer?
• How do health care professionals integrate the two different paradigms of scientific medicine and normative religion?
• Specifically how do healthcare workers utilize their faith and/or religious tradition when it comes to helping patients with diabetes?
• Does the faith of a healthcare professional affect diabetes self-management?
• What is the role of the minister as an authoritative voice in delivery of healthcare?