The effect of a compassion training program on mental and physical health

The Compassion Shift is an initiative of Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics to advance a global culture of compassion by expanding and scaling its research-based compassion training programs across the world in the key areas of healthcare, education, business, and human services. As part of this initiative, the Compassion Center is identifying experienced researchers from each of these four key sectors to form an interdisciplinary research council. The principal responsibility of this council is to develop tools to assess (1) program acceptability, (2) improvement in professional quality of life and personal wellbeing, (3) feasibility of implementation, and (4) methods to optimize future financial return on investment for the implementation of Emory compassion programming within organizations. To develop these assessment tools and to measure outcomes through proof-ofconcept courses run by the Compassion Shift team, the research council will create a comprehensive research program roadmap. This roadmap will identify methodology for implementation including the identification of psychological and biological metrics, recruitment of research subjects, generation of an administrative shell for the research program. Additionally, the research council will coordinate with the Emory team on IRB approvals and the rollout of multi-site research projects using all CBCT® materials developed for the primary course and the four tailored versions.