How can we have healthy and fit pastors leading our churches?

Health Promotion and the Clergy

By Rev. Dr. Nezer A. Soriano

The Problem

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is a growing problem but it is preventable. Globally, 38 million of the 56 million deaths worldwide are due to Non-Communicable diseases like hypertension. Around 48% of these deaths happened before a person reached 70 years old. It is estimated that 80% of premature heart disease, stroke and diabetes cases can be prevented (WHO, 2015). The best preventive way is to educate people and promote health.

A 2013 survey among United Methodist pastors in the US showed “40% of respondents are obese and 39% are overweight—much higher percentages than a demographically-matched sample of U.S. adults. Nearly 51% have high cholesterol, also much higher than comparable benchmarks” (GBOPHB, 2013).

The health education of each clergy member of a particular region will be the health promotion activity effective for this NCD program. The purpose of the campaign is to persuade hypertensive church pastors to adopt a healthy lifestyle. This is best done by teaching individuals about hypertension and equip them with skills how to prevent it.

The Solution

Health education is a health promotion strategy that works well for influencing individual behavioral change. Health education is often done with one-on-one or group or in classes. Since the target audience are individual pastors, health education is an appropriate strategy for pastors especially the hypertensive ones. These pastors often had regular regional gatherings quarterly, thus a health education activity will be feasible and doable when they gather.

The first step in planning health education is to undertake a situational analysis (ILEP, 2015). It is important to identify problems which health education interventions are needed. Among clergy, the problem might be the high number of pastors who have uncontrolled hypertension. After identifying the problem, the next step would be to decide which kind of intervention is best to achieve the objective (ILEP, 2015). In this step, it is important to identify the target group and know their characteristics including age, education and behavior. For the pastors, uncontrolled hypertension may be concentrated among high risk male pastors age 40 to 55 years old. Health education activities may then be directed towards educating them of the importance of reducing the modifiable risk factors of NCDs including weight loss, physical activity, cholesterol level and drinking/smoking habits.

The next step in planning health education is to know what kind of intervention is to be given (ILEP, 2015). This includes choosing what message to emphasize and what medium to use. For the pastors who regularly read their Bibles, a reading pamphlet with Bible verses or a devotion guide integrated with health facts about hypertension will be an effective tool. This can also be used as cues for adopting a healthy lifestyle. Part of the strategy is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the interventions to be used. Lastly, evaluating the health education interventions should also be done to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy in reducing hypertension cases among the clergy. 

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