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Seeking Help from Clergy Among Black Caribbeans in the United States

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Abstract

This study examined use of clergy for serious personal problems within a representative sample of US black Caribbean adults from the National Survey of American Life. Logistic regression analysis was used and confirmed the importance of problem type, church involvement, and nativity as correlates of clergy use. Findings for black Caribbeans indicate similarities, as well as important departures from prior research on the correlates of clergy assistance among African Americans. These and other findings confirm the position of black Caribbeans as a distinctive ethnic subgroup within the general black population in the United States.

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Acknowledgments

The preparation of this manuscript was supported by grants from the National Institute on Institute of Mental Health to Dr. Chatters (R01-MH084963) and to Drs. Chatters and Taylor (R01-MH082807) and from the National Institute on Aging to Drs. Jackson and Taylor (R01-AG15281). The data on which this study is based are supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; U01-MH57716) with supplemental support from the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Michigan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Robert Joseph Taylor & Linda M. Chatters

  2. School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Amanda Toler Woodward

  3. School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Linda M. Chatters

  4. Steinhardt School of Education, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Jacqueline S. Mattis

  5. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    James S. Jackson

Authors
  1. Robert Joseph Taylor
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  2. Amanda Toler Woodward
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  3. Linda M. Chatters
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  4. Jacqueline S. Mattis
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  5. James S. Jackson
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Correspondence to Robert Joseph Taylor.

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Taylor, R.J., Woodward, A.T., Chatters, L.M. et al. Seeking Help from Clergy Among Black Caribbeans in the United States. Race Soc Probl 3, 241–251 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-011-9056-0

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