About

Building on the Swiss National Science Foundation research project on the ‘spiritual dimension’ of health in the WHO (2017-2020), this project, entitled “Spirituality and Health in the United Nations: Global norms for Local Practices” examines the role of other UN organisations in the development of health policy frameworks for interprofessional spiritual care. It is based at the Professorship for Spiritual Care at the University of Zurich.

Due to increasing global interdependence, persistent migration flows and the worsening ecological crisis, the question of how to design a just, humane and affordable health care system has become a key issue of international and national politics. In this context, new forms of cooperation between secular international organisations and faith-based organisations (FBOs) active in the health sector have been established in the widely ramified UN system in recent decades. The documents on health care that have been published in this context have hardly been researched so far.

The aim of the project is to examine the documents published between 1990 and 2020 in terms of their significance for the development of interprofessional spiritual care.

The project is committed to a discourse-analytical approach that combines hermeneutic and empirical methods. In focussed case studies, the following UN organisations are examined and related to the Swiss health system: UNHCR, UNAIDS, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Women, UNICEF, the World Bank Group and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Particular attention is paid to the development of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) by the United Nation’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the longest-standing and highest-level humanitarian coordination forum of the United Nations system, and attempts to bring this field into dialogue with spiritual needs religious complexities of communities affected by conflict, disaster and displacement.

Project Team

Prof. Dr. Simon Peng-Keller

Principal Investigator

Simon Peng-Keller studied Catholic theology at the University of Friborg (Switzerland) and the University of Lucerne. In 2002 he received his doctorate on the psychological mystic research of the doctor Carl Albrecht. In 2010 he received his habilitation and received the venia legendi for the theology of spirituality. Since 2004 he has been a lecturer in theology of spirituality at the Theological Faculty in Chur. Since autumn 2015 he has been Professor of Spiritual Care at the University of Zurich.

Dr. Fabian Winiger

Senior Research Fellow

Dr. Fabian Winiger studied medical anthropology at the University of Oxford and at the University of Hong Kong. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Chair of Spiritual Care at the University of Zurich, where he conducts research on health and spirituality in the WHO and other United Nations agencies. Winiger is involved in the URPP Digital Religion(s), in which he investigates spiritual care in virtual health environments and digital forms of spiritual care.

Dr. Ellen Goodwin

Research Associate

After studying World Christianities (Cambridge) and the role of faith-based organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic (SOAS, London), Dr. Goodwin supported, among others, UNICEF, World Vision UK and the British Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office in their cooperation with religious actors. Since May 2023, she has worked on the SNSF research project “Spirituality and Health in the United Nations: Global Norms for Local Practices” at the Professorship for Spiritual Care in Zürich.

Recent publications

Winiger, F., & Goodwin, E. (2023). “Faith-Sensitive” Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Pluralistic Settings: A Spiritual Care Perspective. Religions, 14(10), 1321. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14101321

Peng-Keller, S., Winiger, F., & Rauch, R. (2022). The Spirit of Global Health: The World Health Organization and the ‘Spiritual Dimension’ of Health, 1946-2021. Oxford University Press

Winiger, F., & Peng-Keller, S. (2021). Religion and the World Health Organization: An evolving relationship. BMJ Global Health, 6(4), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-004073

Winiger, F. (2020). “More than an intensive care phenomenon”: Religious communities and the WHO Guidelines for Ebola and Covid-19: „Mehr als ein Phänomen der Intensivpflege“: Religiöse Gemeinschaften und die WHO Richtlinien für Ebola und Covid-19. Spiritual Care, 9(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1515/spircare-2020-0066

Peng-Keller, S., & Neuhold, D. (Eds.). (2019). Spiritual Care im globalisierten Gesundheitswesen: Historische Hintergründe und aktuelle Entwicklungen. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft

Scroll to Top