Blood pressure, the force employed by the heart to pump blood around the body, plays a crucial role in maintaining healthy physiological processes. Blood pressure monitors typically record two different pressure values, measured in millimetres of mercury.

The higher of these two numbers, known as systolic pressure, represents the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats. The lower value, known as diastolic pressure, is a measurement of the pressure in the arteries between heartbeats.

Healthy blood pressure measurements range between 90 over 60 and 120 over 80. However, it is common for people to exhibit lower or higher values. Low blood pressure, also known as hypotension, can be associated with fainting or dizziness. On the other hand, high blood pressure, or hypertension, can increase the risk of a wide range of serious medical conditions.

Studies have identified various factors that can increase the risk of high blood pressure, including obesity, eating excessive amounts of salt, drinking too much alcohol or coffee, smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, and high levels of stress. While there are now several medications that reduce blood pressure, hypertension also can be successfully mitigated by adopting a healthier lifestyle.

In recent years, healthcare professionals have been trying to devise effective interventions that encourage people to keep their blood pressure in check and make meaningful lifestyle changes.

In recent research, Dr Abayomi Sanusi at the University of York has been exploring the development of low-cost interventions to address the issue of hypertension on a large-scale. In his new paper, he specifically investigated the possible role of faith-based institutions and faith leaders in promoting healthy lifestyle changes among religious communities.

Dr Sanusi and his colleagues reviewed the results of 24 different studies and data stored in various databases, including MEDLINE and Embase. This data was collected from a total of 39,540 people, the majority of whom resided in the USA. The researchers analysed this data in depth, to gain more insight about how faith institutions helped members of their communities to make healthy lifestyle changes.

The researchers found that faith-based organisations could help people to lower their blood pressure in various ways.  

Firstly, they could increase people’s awareness of the link between their lifestyle and hypertension. Some faith organisations also promoted physical exercise, healthy nutrition, and regular cardiovascular health checks. Others even organised group physical activities and training sessions, enabling people to take concrete actions to improve their health.

Some faith leaders also conveyed key health-related messages as part of their sermons. Others distributed leaflets providing information about cardiovascular health, offered useful advice about nutrition and cardiovascular health, encouraged members of their congregation to take greater control of their health, or provided opportunities for regular blood pressure checks. 

In the 24 studies examined by Dr Sanusi, researchers had recorded the blood pressure, body weight, and waist circumference of people in specific religious congregations before and after their Church had introduced health-oriented interventions. By analysing this data, Dr Sanusi and his colleagues were able to better understand the extent to which these initiatives had positively influenced the health of participating individuals.

Overall, the team’s findings confirm the value of support provided by faith institutions in helping to address widespread hypertension. The data they analysed suggest that, on average, health-based interventions introduced by African American churches and other faith-based organisations succeeded in prompting a reduction of the participants’ weight, yet they did not significantly affect the participants’ waist circumference.

The researchers found limited evidence of the positive influence of these interventions on the blood pressure of their recipients. They found that on average, the systolic pressure of participants significantly decreased both three and twelve months after the interventions, while on average the diastolic pressure of participants remained unaltered.

In their paper, Dr Sanusi and his colleagues also characterised the roles of faith organisations in helping people to attain or maintain a healthy blood pressure. Specifically, they found that their positive influence on people’s health stems from relationships of trust with local leadership, which are fuelled by the work of local clergy and congregation leaders.

The team found that health-promoting activities of faith institutions often foster a sense of ownership, prioritise transparency and the simplification of scientific information, and link healthy lifestyles with spirituality. These activities are typically in alignment with the cultural contexts they are introduced in, conforming to the spiritual beliefs of participating individuals.

The researchers highlight that health interventions by faith institutions are usually ethical and harmless to participants. Moreover, their implementation typically requires extensive training and cooperation between trusted leaders in local communities.

Dr Sanusi observed that previous research exploring the potential role of faith organisations in promoting healthy lifestyles and tackling hypertension is still scarce, with most existing studies focusing on African and African American Christian congregations. His paper thus highlights the need to conduct more studies focusing on a broader range of faith-based communities.

In addition, he found that most studies framed these efforts as a collection of mechanisms, the most common of which is health-related coaching, counselling, and motivational training. The interventions analysed in his paper also consisted of multiple components; thus, determining the effectiveness of each of these proved difficult.

The findings gathered by Dr Sanusi and his colleagues show that health-related interventions implemented by faith institutions have a positive impact on people and their communities. Their study could inform the work of health professionals, policymakers, and faith institutions, inspiring the development of collaborative efforts aimed at tackling hypertension and associated health issues at a local level.

While faith institutions are not typically viewed as entities that can influence global health or develop solutions to tackle complex health problems, this study suggests that they could help to positively influence the behaviour and lifestyle choices of individuals. The work of faith-based organisations could be particularly valuable in places where people have limited access to services such as dieticians, nutritionists, gyms, and guided health training programs.

As faith congregations are generally free, initiatives run by these communities could be sustainable alternatives to expensive services that are only accessible to part of the general public. Dr Sanusi and his colleagues hope that their study will inspire further research and the introduction of new community-based, long-term and sustainable health interventions.