It is a two-year program that helps a congregation become a health and wellness resource for its own members and its surrounding neighborhood. A small team from each congregation learns to assess local health needs and write a five-year FaithHealth Improvement Plan, and the Cities for Better Health team connects that plan to a wide network of health partners.

It is led by Cities for Better Health, Houston, at the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center.

The Institute for Spirituality and Health runs the cohort. Cities for Better Health is a global initiative, supported by Novo Nordisk, that works to improve health in cities. In Houston, Cities for Better Health focuses primarily on prevention and health equity through faith communities, and this cohort is its flagship leadership program.

Each team writes a FaithHealth Improvement Plan, a five-year plan with goals, programs, and a way to hold itself accountable, grounded in the congregation's own data and its own faith tradition. The plan then moves into real programming over the second year.

In Cohort 1, all nine teams completed and presented their plans publicly in February 2026.

Cohort 1 brought together nine congregations across six faith traditions and three languages, of very different sizes and backgrounds. Working independently, every team named the same needs: mental health, chronic disease, food security, and access to care.

• Spring Branch SDA Spanish Church, Seventh-Day Adventist

• First Metropolitan Church, non-denominational

• The R.O.C.K. WOI, non-denominational

• Holy Trinity MBC, Missionary Baptist

• Agape Christian Fellowship, non-denominational

• Ashirwad A Blessing Temple, Hindu

• St. Paul's / San Pablo Episcopal, Episcopal

• Hosanna Lutheran Church, Lutheran (ELCA)

• Kinsmen Lutheran Church, Lutheran (ELCA)

All nine presented their five-year plans publicly in February 2026.

Yes. The cohort is built so that each congregation does this work within its own beliefs and practices, not from a template borrowed from one tradition. Cohort 1 included a Hindu temple, a Missionary Baptist church, Adventist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and non-denominational congregations, and each wrote its plan in its own language and theological tradition.

Your faith is not a backdrop to health work. It is the foundation of it. The whole idea of the program is that a house of worship is one of the most trusted places in a person's life, and that caring for the body and mind is part of caring for the whole person.

Across traditions, faith communities have always cared for the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. When members are struggling with diabetes, isolation, or the cost of care, that is already part of the congregation's life, whether or not anyone has named it.

When members were asked, they named their faith community as the single most important place for their health, ahead of doctors and clinics.

The cohort does not ask a congregation to become a clinic. It helps the congregation do, in an organized way and with real partners, what it is already trying to do.

Congregations of any faith tradition in the Greater Houston area. The 32 congregations that applied to Cohort 1 included Adventist, Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Hindu, Muslim, and non-denominational congregations, ranging from about 150 members to more than 1,500.

The strongest candidates are congregations that genuinely need this work and are ready to commit a small team to it for two years.

Probably not. Cohort 1 ranged from congregations of about 150 members to more than 1,500, and small congregations did some of the strongest work because the team knew almost everyone.

Health needs are rarely where people assume. Even congregations that look healthy often carry real, undiagnosed disease and mental health burden, which the survey tends to surface. What matters most is not how much your congregation already has, but whether there is real need here and whether your team is ready to do the work. A good question to ask yourselves is what this cohort would make possible that you cannot do on your own right now.

Many congregations already hold a health fair or a food drive, and those are good. The cohort is not meant to replace them. What it adds is a foundation underneath them: your own data on what your members actually need, a five-year plan built from that data, and a network of partners who show up behind it.

The difference is moving from one-off events to a solid strategic plan with partners attached, so the work continues and builds instead of starting over each year.

The main commitment is people and time. A small team of clergy and lay leaders who will carry the work for the two years. Completing the assessment-to-plan sequence with staff support. Hosting the FaithHealth Community Survey and a few listening sessions with members. Moving the plan into programming once it is written.

Plan for about 20 hours a month for the whole team, shared across its members, not 20 hours each. The heaviest stretch is the six-month assessment and planning phase at the start. Once the plan moves into programming in the second year, the team is leading real activities in the congregation.

You do not need health expertise on the team. You need people who know and care about your congregation and your community.  Along with our partners from public health, we will train you in understanding the needs of your community and turn them into realistic and implementable goals in your FaithHealth Improvement Plan. 

We suggest a team of four to seven people, drawn from clergy and lay leaders. The mix matters more than any one role. People who are trusted in the congregation, who know its families, and who are ready to do the work tend to make the strongest teams.

We encourage the senior clergy leader to take part on the team, and their active support in championing the work is just as valuable. What matters is that the effort has real backing from the congregation's leadership.

There is no fee to take part. The cohort is supported by philanthropic funding, and your congregation is not asked to fund the program or hire anyone to join. What your congregation contributes is the team's time.

We are recruiting a new group of congregations for Fall 2026. After you apply, we will follow up to talk through fit, and we will sit with you in a selection conversation so the match works on both sides.

Admission is competitive. In Cohort 1 we were able to admit only about a third of the 32 congregations that applied. 

Even so, we encourage any motivated faith community to apply. No experience with the health or wellness ministry is necessary. We are looking for teams whose members are excited to roll up their sleeves to improve the health of their community.

Applications close Friday, August 28, at Midnight. Cohort 2 begins in September 2026.

We hope you will apply again. Because admission is competitive, and we could admit only about a third of Cohort 1 applicants, strong congregations are not selected simply because the seats are limited. Applying once tells us you are interested, and we welcome you back for the next cohort. In the meantime, you are warmly invited to the information sessions.

Cohort 2 launches in September 2026. The first six months are for assessment and planning, with the survey, the neighborhood walks, and the plan itself. The first programs follow, and the work grows into steady programming over the second year. The whole arc runs about two years, from the first meeting to the final projects.

It is the heart of the program. It is a five-year plan a congregation writes for itself, with goals, a timeline, and a way to stay accountable, all built from the congregation's own survey data and its own faith tradition.

It is a living document, not a binder that goes on a shelf. Teams write it during the assessment year, then update it through the two years of the cohort and beyond, as partners come on board and programs start. Each plan is matched to specific partners and programs, and the team revises it into a working plan that names who will contact which partner, by when, and about what.

What goes into a plan looks different for every congregation, because the data and the needs differ. A few real examples from Cohort 1:

Example one. With about half of members uninsured, the plan leads with a health insurance navigation center, monthly navigator visits, and trained bilingual navigators, alongside six-week diabetes classes and first-Saturday screenings, all built around a weekend enrollment and health hub.

Example two. An integrated program that treats mental health, metabolic disease, and access as one connected system, with a weekly mental health support circle, a walking club, nutrition workshops using familiar cultural recipes, and a team of bilingual health navigators.

Example three. Three priorities: mental and emotional well-being, closing the survival gap of food and housing, and healthy habits through movement, with a quarterly Saturday health and outreach day, a faith-based mental health series, and a referral pathway for unhoused families.

Example four. An integrated response across body, mind, and access, with a healthy food pantry that doubles as a chronic-disease intervention, mental health education days, volunteer health guides trained to help members enroll and find care, and an annual health day that grows into regular programming.

In every case, the plan is the congregation's own. The cohort's role is to help write it, match it to partners, and keep supporting it as it grows.

It is a 49-question survey that asks members about their health, their access to care, and what they would want their congregation to offer. In Cohort 1, it gathered 1,012 responses across nine congregations.

Your members' privacy is protected. The survey does not collect names or contact information, so no response can be traced back to any individual. Only aggregated results are shared, and only with our partners, so they understand the resources they need to mobilize to help make the FaithHealth Improvement Plans happen.

Across 1,012 responses in nine congregations, the survey surfaced needs that no single program could have met on its own.

• 64 percent have a heart or metabolic condition, such as diabetes or high blood pressure

• 34 percent have diabetes or prediabetes

• 28 percent are food insecure

• 18 percent are uninsured

One clear split ran through the cohort. Congregations fell into two groups facing almost opposite barriers, which is a large part of why each plan looks different.

Some congregations are mostly insured. Most members have coverage, yet carry heavy, poorly managed disease, with 76 percent showing a heart or metabolic condition and 44 percent showing high blood pressure in the hardest-hit congregations. The barrier is not getting in the door; it is managing disease once inside the system.

Other congregations are largely uninsured. In the hardest-hit congregations, 46 percent of members are uninsured, and 38 percent have no regular provider, and many want screenings and lifestyle programs offered through their faith community. Here the barrier is getting into the system at all.

Beyond that split, a few findings showed up across the whole cohort.

• A diagnosis gap, not a health gap. Insured members showed higher diagnosis rates for nearly every condition, because the uninsured are simply not being screened. Uninsured respondents were four to six times more likely to answer that they did not know their own diabetes or blood pressure status. At one congregation in the cohort, 64 percent named diabetes their top concern, yet only 9 percent had a clinical diagnosis. The gap is in detection, not disease.

• Mental health cuts across every congregation. Frequent poor mental health days showed up at high rates in nearly every congregation, regardless of income or insurance. At one congregation, more than 40 percent of members reported ten or more poor mental health days a month. Unlike physical disease, this burden did not track with the neighborhood map, which tells us mental and emotional health support is needed everywhere, not only in the highest-need areas.

• Few members have a medical home. Across the cohort, many members had no regular doctor or place they go for care, with the rates highest in the uninsured, immigrant congregations. A screening or an enrollment event only matters if it leads somewhere, so each plan treats connecting members to a lasting medical home, a doctor they see regularly, as the real destination.

• A younger population than expected. A quarter of respondents are under 40, and they are worse off on access than their elders, 28 percent uninsured against 16, and 34 percent without a regular provider against 13. This is the prevention population earlier efforts were not reaching.  This provides a big opportunity for FaithHealth programming addressing the needs of younger families with children. 

These findings are why no two plans look alike. Each congregation was built from its own numbers.

A congregation that joins the cohort does not build these relationships alone. Each finished plan is matched to partners across public health, clinical care, academic training, and disease and mental health organizations.

• Public health. Houston Health Department, Harris County Public Health, and Fort Bend Health and Human Services.

• Clinical and safety net. Harris Health System, HOPE Clinic, Ibn Sina Foundation, and Spring Branch Community Health Center.

• Mental health and disease organizations. American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, NAMI Greater Houston, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Alzheimer's Association.

• Academic, training, and community. UTHealth School of Public Health, University of Houston Community Health Workers Initiative, Prairie View A&M University, The Sustainable Food Center, and FitHouston.

The cohort works in the congregation's own languages. Cohort 1 was delivered in English, Spanish, and Hindi, with bilingual staff facilitation for the Spanish-speaking congregations. If your congregation worships in another language, tell us in your application.

We will meet your team where you are. If your team is most comfortable working in Spanish, we will work alongside you in Spanish, with bilingual staff and materials. Several of our Cohort 1 teams did exactly that.

The same goes for anything else that would help your team take part fully, whether that is materials in a particular format, meeting times that fit your lives, or another kind of support. Tell us what you need. Removing barriers is the whole point of this work, and that starts with your own team.

Hands-on facilitation through the whole arc, including bilingual support. The Cities for Better Health team meets teams where they are, including evenings and weekends, and matches each finished plan to partner programs, then convenes the first meetings between your team and those partners.

You would be a trusted connector, not a clinician. In practice that means helping gather your congregation's input, taking part in the planning, and then helping run the programs your team chooses, things like welcoming members to a screening, helping someone start an enrollment form, or hosting a walking group.

You are never asked to give medical advice or do anything you are not trained for. Where a role does call for training, like helping members enroll in coverage, the program and its partners provide it. What you bring is what you already have, the trust of your community and the willingness to help.

The plan is yours to keep. It is a five-year plan, written by your team, and it does not end when the formal program does. The partner relationships you build, with health departments, clinics, and disease and mental health organizations, continue too.

The whole design is meant to leave the congregation stronger and more connected than it started, so the work keeps going under your own leadership well beyond the two years.

It depends on what each congregation's data showed. A few real examples from Cohort 1: a church-based health insurance navigation center, staffed by trusted lay leaders in Spanish, where access to coverage was the biggest barrier. A bilingual nutrition and cooking program, with 28 lay facilitators trained to teach it. Bilingual mental health support circles and a rapid crisis response after a loss in the community. Weekly walking groups, a community garden, and in-church screening events in collaboration with local Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Every plan is different, because every congregation's needs are different.

Alongside the cohort, the Institute is training and embedding certified Community Health Workers in a set of congregations, through a separate initiative supported by the Cullen Trust for Health Care. These workers connect members to clinics and follow up on care. It is related to the cohort but is its own program with its own funding, and not every cohort congregation hosts one. We are collaborating with the University of Houston Community Health Workers Initiative and a network of Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Start with the application on the program page. It takes about 20 minutes and asks about your congregation and the team you would bring. You do not need to have everything figured out. We work through the details together.

The application link is on the program page, and applications close Friday, August 28, at Midnight.

Yes. We are holding four information sessions for interested congregations. Each of them cover the same material. Attend whichever fits your schedule. Dates, times, formats, and registration links are on the program page.

We would love to hear from you. Before you apply, you are warmly invited to call for a one-on-one conversation, no pressure at all, just a chance to talk through whether this is right for your congregation and to answer anything on your mind. Reach Dr. Maricela Caceres, Program Manager, at the Institute.

You are also strongly encouraged to join one of the online information sessions, where you can meet the team and hear how the cohort works.

Details are on the program page: CLICK HERE