Recent years have witnessed substantial growth in the scientific analysis of the relationship between religion and health. Some of this work has been widely publicized, and much (but not all) of it suggests beneficial effects of religious involvement for health and mortality outcomes. Nevertheless, this area of research remains highly controversial, both because of the topic of the research and because of the limitations of the current research in the area. These limitations include the small, community-based nature of many of the samples used in previous research, the lack of a range of outcome measures that have been examined in most of this research, and, very importantly, the scarcity of race/ethnic comparisons that have been made in the previous literature. The proposed research project on religion, race/ethnicity, health, and mortality among US adults will advance the field in a number of ways. First, the project will explore the links between religious involvement and a broad array of mental and physical health outcomes and mortality risk. Second, the project will consider important health-related outcomes (e.g., course of disease and disability, use of health care and medication) that have received little attention in previous studies. Third, the project will examine the effects of multiple dimensions of religious involvement (e.g., denominational affiliation, attendance, salience), which is not often accomplished in related research. Fourth, the analyses will control for the potentially confounding effects of important covariates, including health practices, social ties, socioeconomic status, and other key background factors. Fifth, the project will analyze multiple panels of the Health and Retirement Study data--a large, nationally-representative sample of aging Americans. Sixth, the project will specifically examine relationships between religious involvement and health among racial-ethnic minority populations, including African Americans and Latinos/as. Finally, the project will conduct systematic, three-way racial/ethnic comparisons of religious effects on health. Members of the research team have a proven track record in the area and bring to the project expertise from diverse backgrounds, including the sociology of religion and race/ethnicity, demography, health and aging, and statistical methods. In short, the proposed project will be an important step toward a more thorough understanding of the relationship between religion and health outcomes in the increasingly diverse United States of the 21"""""""" century.
| Ellison, Christopher G; Flannelly, Kevin J (2009) Religious involvement and risk of major depression in a prospective nationwide study of African American adults. J Nerv Ment Dis 197:568-73 |
| Ellison, Christopher G; Burdette, Amy M; Hill, Terrence D (2009) Blessed assurance: religion, anxiety, and tranquility among US adults. Soc Sci Res 38:656-67 |
| Hill, Terrence D; Angel, Jacqueline L; Ellison, Christopher G et al. (2005) Religious attendance and mortality: an 8-year follow-up of older Mexican Americans. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 60:S102-9 |
| Hummer, Robert A; Ellison, Christopher G; Rogers, Richard G et al. (2004) Religious involvement and adult mortality in the United States: review and perspective. South Med J 97:1223-30 |
