Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On April 13, 2000, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a two-day meeting of 400 St. Louis religious and health care leaders took place on April 12-13 at the Washington Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. The meeting focused on the growing role that religion and religious groups are playing in health care. The conference is the first public event of the 2-year-old St. Louis Faith and Health Consortium. Rev. Dr. Gary R. Gunderson, director of the Interfaith Health Program of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, spoke at the conference about how religious congregations can make a difference in the care of the whole person - body and soul. He pointed out that statistics from studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health and medical schools show that religious belief can positively affect a person's health.