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Cited by 87Mindfulness and Compassion InterventionsHealth, psychology, and well-beingReligion, Spirituality, and Psychology

Mindfulness for Global Public Health: Critical Analysis and Agenda

Open access
Oman, Doug·2025·Mindfulness
DOI 10.1007/s12671-023-02089-5
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Abstract

Objective: The modern mindfulness movement and the public health field are aligned in many approaches, including recognizing psychosocial stress impacts and physical-mental health linkages, valuing “upstream” preventive approaches, and seeking to integrate health promotion activities across multiple social sectors. Yet mindfulness is conspicuously absent from most global and public health literature and practice, suggesting unfulfilled potential. This paper analyzes the mindfulness field from a public health perspective, with the aim of identifying evidential and conceptual bases, methods, potential consequences, and initial research and action agendas for greater integration of mindfulness approaches into global, national, and local public health efforts. Methods: This paper reviews scientific and scholarly literature on the currently existing and potential relationships between mindfulness and public health, with special attention to 14 dimensions of potential tension or alignment. Results: Several alignments were noted above. However, the mindfulness field is substantially lagging on multi-level interventions (e.g., both individual and collective levels), cultural and religious adaptations, and epidemiologic underpinnings. Both mindfulness and public health initiatives are in need of efforts to promote intercultural, interreligious, and intercontemplative competencies, in developing interventions to address pathogenic factors in the collective attentional environments in society, and in attending to religious and spiritual factors. Conclusions: Full public health uptake will benefit from several additional lines of research and innovation, especially greater attention to cultural and religious adaptation, with attention also much needed to multi-level interventions and epidemiologic foundations.

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  • Exposure-based strategies (gradual exposure to sleep-related cues) reduce panic-related sleep disturbance.

    “Exposure-based strategies, such as gradual exposure to sleep-related cues, have shown efficacy in reducing panic-related sleep disturbance in controlled trials [111,112].”

    From Pre-Sleep Anxiety: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Approaches in Clinical Practice. (2026) · cites this paper as [112]

    The Religious Adaptations of Mindfulness section discusses controlled trials of mindfulness analogues for stress and mental-health outcomes, not exposure-based treatment for panic-related sleep disturbance. Searches for gradual exposure to sleep-related cues and for panic, sleep, and exposure therapy found no passage addressing the claimed treatment or outcome; the retrieved passages have no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Authors
Oman, D.
Affiliations
University of California, Berkeley (US)
Corresponding author
Oman, Doug
ORCID
Oman, Doug
Venue
Mindfulness
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2023-03-03
Volume
16
Issue
3
Pages
573-612
ISSN
  • 1868-8527 (ISSN-L)
  • 1868-8535
DOI
10.1007/s12671-023-02089-5
OpenAlex
W4323042947
Cited by
87
References
337
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 13
FWCI
25.39
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
Mindfulness (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health, psychology, and well-being
  • Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
Keywords
public health, global health, psychosocial stress, upstream prevention, health promotion, multilevel interventions, cultural adaptation, intercultural competence, interreligious competence, research agenda

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