posted 11-14-02

 

Spirituality and Health Focus of April 2003 Conference

Get healthy. Stay fit. Let spirituality play a significant role in your overall wellbeing. Certainly, these idealistic goals are pertinent to most of us.

The International Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality will be gathering nearly 50 of the nation's top researchers to jointly provide in-depth information on various health-related topics. Subjects include effective health care delivery and the latest medical and scientific research.

Co-sponsored with the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (CRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania, this plenary-style conference will be held April 1-3, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Natcher Conference Center in Bethesda, MD.

"This is an incomparable opportunity to introduce cutting-edge research and report on the positive and, in some cases, the negative relationship between integrating health and spirituality into service delivery," said Thomas Smith, Ph.D, CEO and interim president of ICIHS.

The mid-Spring conference will offer three days of sessions covering various aspects of health and spirituality. Day one, for example, will focus on the topic of spirituality and physical health. The keynote speaker for the day will be Ellen Idler, Ph.D, professor and chair, department of sociology. On day two, keynote speaker Harold Koenig, M.D., associate professor of Duke University School of Medicine, will speak about the important factors bridging spirituality and mental health. The third day, which concludes the conference, will offer ideas to its participants information on the social aspects of spirituality. Byron Johnson, the director at the University of Pennsylvania's CRRUCS, will be the day's featured keynote speaker.

The International Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the ideas of health and spirituality. Its aim is to provide a strategic direction to define and advance in this emerging field for all interested researchers, educators, clinicians and patients. For further information on the upcoming conference, please call the ICIHS office at (301) 984-7162 or visit its Web site at icihs.org after November 15.