Faith-Based Care Invisible to Health Researchers
Christian, Islamic and other faith-based organizations provide extensive healthcare in the worldβs poorest places, but are invisible to global health researchers, according to a series of papers published this month in medical journal The Lancet. The result is a dearth of data about the services that organizations such as Islamic Relief and the Salvation Army provide, the articles say. In many developing countries, faith-based organizations provide 40 percent or more of the healthcare, says Robert J. Vitillo, a special advisor on health to Catholic development organization Caritas Internationalis, and a co-author of one of the articles. But few studies are conducted on faith-based healthcare and data that is gathered often fails to reach the medical literature, he says.
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