The Duke Clergy
Health Initiative.
For nearly two decades a team at Duke Divinity School has been doing something almost no one else has done at scale: patiently studying the health of clergy over time, year after year, and asking what it actually takes for the people who carry congregations and institutions to remain well in the work. That study, the Duke Clergy Health Initiative, is one of the references that shaped how we think about Cōr.
The Clergy Health Initiative was launched in 2007 at Duke Divinity School with funding from The Duke Endowment. Its original focus was the health and well-being of United Methodist clergy in North Carolina, followed prospectively through repeated surveys, biometric measures, and a series of targeted interventions.
The work spans physical health, mental health, stress, chronic disease, and the conditions of ministry itself. It treats vocational well-being and bodily health as one subject rather than two, which is unusual in clinical research and very close to how the people we serve actually experience their lives.
Findings and instruments from the initiative have informed denominational health programs, pension and benefits conversations, and a generation of clergy wellness work well beyond the United Methodist tradition.
- Clergy in the study population carry elevated rates of obesity, hypertension, and other chronic conditions compared to peers of similar age and education.
- Rates of depressive symptoms and anxiety have shown up meaningfully higher than national comparison groups, with vocational stress repeatedly identified as a driver.
- The initiative's Spirited Life intervention, a multi-year program combining health coaching, small groups, and practical tools, produced sustained improvements in weight, metabolic markers, and self-reported well-being.
- Continuity matters. The benefits showed up not in a single event or screening, but in steady, relational support sustained across years.
- Care for the household, including spouses, has emerged as inseparable from care for the leader. The two cannot be treated as separate problems.
The initiative confirms in data what bishops, presidents, deans, and senior staff already sense: the people who carry the mission are quietly worn down by it, and the standard care system is not built to notice. Cōr Stewardship was built to be the layer that does notice, year after year, on behalf of the leader and the household around them. The Duke work is part of why we believe that layer is worth building with the seriousness of a vocation, not the cadence of a program.
Cōr Stewardship is not affiliated with Duke University, Duke Divinity School, or The Duke Endowment. The Clergy Health Initiative is cited here as a public reference that has shaped our thinking.