Strengthening Trust Through Faith-Health Partnerships
The Georgetown–Lancet Commission on Faith, Trust, and Health is a global, multidisciplinary initiative that reimagines the role of faith-health partnerships to strengthen trust in health services across communities worldwide.
By bringing together faith leaders, health practitioners, researchers, and policymakers, the Commission advances research, dialogue, and collaboration to shift narratives, shape policy and practice, and strengthen partnerships that promote well-being globally.
Trust in health is shifting. Misinformation, historical injustices, and institutional failure have weakened public confidence, not only in health systems and science, but in traditional sources of authority. At this moment, it is urgent to reimagine how we build trust.
Faith communities offer more than spiritual support. They are trusted guides, service providers, and meaning-makers, especially for the most marginalized. However, their role in public health is often overlooked, contentious, or misunderstood.
Why Faith-Health Partnerships Matter
They strengthen vaccine confidence.
In countries from Nigeria to India, partnerships with faith leaders have been critical to overcoming vaccine hesitancy, shifting community norms and increasing immunization rates.
They support mental health & well-being.
Faith spaces are the first or only source of mental health support. Faith leaders provide comfort, counseling, and meaning, especially where formal services are inaccessible or stigmatized.
They guide communities through crises.
During epidemics, faith-based institutions offered not just health services, but critical moral guidance and pastoral care in moments of uncertainty.
