Religious Minorities and Medicine: The Collision of Health Care and Faith

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-27580-2_3

Most of the research about prevention, diagnosis, and treatment disparities in minority patients in the medical literature focuses only on ethnic minority populations. This chapter will provide a description of religious minorities in the United States and the way in which their religious identification can impact the care that they receive in the medical system. For practitioners, researchers, and educators, particularly in major metropolitan areas, faith or religion-based values may present challenges to the way health care is typically delivered. Religious minority patients may have differences in terms of their dress, diet, or gender interactions, or the way in which they view reproduction and fertility, or may have a different view of end of life care. Their views could interfere with standard medical care.