Abstract
ABSTRACT
More than a Sunday Service: The Role of Congregational Assets in Shaping Health Programming Efforts in Black Churches
A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Heller School for
Social Policy and Management and the Graduate Faculty of Brandies University
Waltham, Massachusetts
By Aaron Drew Camp, MA, MSW
Black churches have long served as trusted partners in health promotion, yet scholarship has paid limited attention to the institutional opportunity structures that shape whether congregations initiate, sustain, and scale health programming. This dissertation examines how congregational assets, theoretically conceptualized as social, organizational, and financial, enable, or constrain the development and maintenance of internally led health programming within Black churches. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, the study integrates quantitative analysis of variables drawn from the 2018 National Congregations Study with qualitative inquiry involving interviews, participant observation, and document review in eight Black congregations and their external partners located in a metropolitan region of the Southeastern United States. Quantitative findings identify a constellation of characteristics associated with the presence of designated health programming, including affirming policies toward gay and lesbian couples, building ownership, full-time clergy employment, larger congregation size, worship practices fostering collective solidarity, strong community engagement, and demographic configurations that support institutional stability. Qualitative findings deepen these results by mapping how assets intersect—internally and in partnership networks—to influence program initiation, implementation, and sustainability, and by illuminating how the COVID‑19 pandemic reshaped priorities, resources, and external collaborations.
Together, the findings reposition Black churches not merely as short-term program sites but as institutional actors whose internal capacities and external linkages are central to advancing health equity and addressing persistent racialized health inequities. The study offers actionable implications for policymakers, practitioners, and congregational leaders seeking equitable, contextually grounded, and durable health interventions, while contributing to scholarship at the intersection of health equity, organizational theory, social capital, and faith-based public health.