Research in the field of religion and aging is rapidly growing because of the demonstrated importance of religion in the lives of older adults. Despite this acknowledged importance, however, there remains a dearth of research on this issue, particularly with regard to investigations of older African Americans. The proposed research aims to address these gaps in the literature and provide an indepth examination of religious involvement among older African Americans, older Whites and, for the first time, older Afro Caribbeans. Specifically, the proposed research will examine the correlates of organizational (e.g., religious service attendance, membership), nonorganizational (frequency of prayer, reading religious materials, watching religious television broadcasts) and subjective religiosity (attitudes about the importance of religion, self-rated religiosity) within these identified population groups. This research will also address a neglected question in the literature concerning the interface between spirituality and religiosity, that is, the degree to which people characterize themselves as being spiritual versus religious. Finally, the proposed work will confirm a multidimensional measurement model of religious involvement among older Black, Afro Caribbean and White respondents. This proposed study will utilize data from the National Survey of American Life (N=6,199), of which 1,479 respondents are 55 years of age and older. The data analytic approaches to be used include regression, logistic regression, multi-nominal logistic regression and structural equation modeling.
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