The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive and multidimensional set of measures to assess religiousness in later life. In particular, the proposed research has the following objectives: 1) To conduct a series of focus groups, in-depth interviews, and cognitive interviews in order to identify the content domain of religion as it is lived by older adults; 2) To use the data obtained from these qualitative methods to craft closed-ended survey items to measure religion; 3) To conduct a random community survey that will provide data for a state-of-the- art confirmatory factor analytic assessment of the newly devised indicators; 4) To examine the potential impact of the newly created religion items on health and well-being; and 5) To pay particular attention to differences in the way that religiousness is experienced, expressed, and measured in groups consisting of older whites and elderly African Americans.
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