As of 2023, I am leading the Stakeholder Project, aimed at catalyzing improvements in how the US-based public health field understands and partners with communities of faith across the country, and how it understands religion and spirituality as factors that matter for public health. More information here:
For several years, I operated a training grant for graduate students in public health at U.C. Berkeley, giving training and partial financial support each year to three students who are addressing religious and/or spiritual factors in their research work (e.g., dissertations). In the standard model, accepted student received two years of support. The program began in Fall semester 2018. More information on training is available here:
I published a book, Why Religion and Spirituality Matter for Public Health (2018), with contents described elsewhere on this website:
I also have been an organizer of a student essay contest on spirituality and public health, as described here:
In early 2023, the journal Mindfulness published an analysis of mine titled “Mindfulness for Global Public Health: Critical Analysis and Agenda” (link) as a target article for commentary for a special issue, the first time since its launch in 2010 that this journal has organized special issue for commentary. Much of the target article pertains to the need to consider and support indigenous analogues across diverse religious traditions and cultures. Commentaries as of 20 Dec 2023 had been published by Levin, Knabb & Vazquez,* Sedlmeier,* Sutton,* Palitsky, Lyons & Kaplan (*=open access); or check for more at journal’s online first page; Target article citation, open access:
- Oman, D. (2023). Mindfulness for global public health: Critical analysis and agenda. Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02089-5