Journal of Religion and Health

, Volume 54, Issue 6, pp 2052–2072 | Cite as

Religious Affiliation, Religious Service Attendance, and Mortality

Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Very few studies have examined the effects of both religious affiliation and religiosity on mortality at the same time, and studies employing multiple dimensions of religiosity other than religious attendance are rare. Using the newly created General Social Survey-National Death Index data, our report contributes to the religion and mortality literature by examining religious affiliation and religiosity at the same time. Compared to Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and other religious groups have lower risk of death, but Black Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and even those with no religious affiliation are not different from Mainline Protestants. While our study is consistent with previous findings that religious attendance leads to a reduction in mortality, we did not find other religious measures, such as strength of religious affiliation, frequency of praying, belief in an afterlife, and belief in God to be associated with mortality. We also find interaction effects between religious affiliation and attendance. The lowest mortality of Jews and other religious groups is more apparent for those with lower religious attendance. Thus, our result may emphasize the need for other research to focus on the effects of religious group and religious attendance on mortality at the same time.

Keywords

Religious affiliation Religious service attendance Mortality 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Carr, D., & Sharp, S. (2013). Do afterlife beliefs affect psychological adjustment to late-life spousal loss? Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. doi:  10.1093/geronb/gbt063. First published online: June 29, 2013.
  2. Chaves, M. (2011). American religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Chida, Y., Steptoe, A., & Powell, L. H. (2009). Religiosity/spirituality and mortality a systematic quantitative review. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 78(2), 81–90.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  4. Cleves, M., Gutierrez, R. G., Gould, W., & Marchenko, Y. V. (2010). An introduction to survival analysis using stata. College Station, Texas: Stata.Google Scholar
  5. Cornwall, M., Albrecht, S. L., Cunningham, P. H., & Pitcher, B. L. (1986). The dimensions of religiosity: A conceptual model with an empirical test. Review of Religious Research, 27(3), 226–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Ellison, C., & Levin, J. S. (1998). The religion-health connection: Evidence, theory, and future directions. Health education and Behavior, 25(6), 700–720.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  7. Gillum, R. F., King, D. E., Obisesan, T. O., & Koenig, H. G. (2008). Frequency of attendance at religious services and mortality in a U.S. national cohort. Annals of Epidemiology, 18(2), 124–129.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  8. Goldstein, S. (1996). Changes in Jewish mortality. Social Biology, 43(1–2), 72–97.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  9. Greeley, A. M., & Hout, M. (1999). Americans’ increasing belief in life after death: Religious competition and acculturation. American Sociological Review, 64(6), 813–835.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Greenfield, E. A., & Marks, N. F. (2007). Religious social identity as an explanatory factor for associations between more frequent formal religious participation and psychological well-being. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 17(3), 245–259.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  11. Harrigan, J. T. (2011). Health promoting habits of people who pray for their health. Journal of Religion and Health, 50(3), 602–607.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  12. Helm, H. M., Hays, J. C., Flint, E. P., Koenig, E. P., & Blazer, D. G. (2000). Does private religious activity prolong survival? A six-year follow-up study of 3,851 older adults. Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 55(7), M400–M405.Google Scholar
  13. Hill, T. D., Burdette, A. M., & Idler, E. L. (2011). Religious involvement, health status, and mortality risk. In R. A. Settersten & J. L. Angel (Eds.), Handbook of sociology of aging (pp. 533–546). New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Hogg, M. A. (2006). Social identity theory. In P. J. Burke (Ed.), Contemporary social psychological theories (pp. 111–136). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
  15. Hogg, M. A., Adelman, J. R., & Blagg, R. D. (2010). Religion in the face of uncertainty: An uncertainty-identity theory account of religiousness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 72–83.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  16. Hummer, R. A., Ellison, C. G., Rogers, R. G., Moulton, B. E., & Romero, R. R. (2004). Religious Involvement and adult mortality in the United States: Review and perspective. Southern Medical Journal, 97(12), 1223–1230.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  17. Hummer, R. A., Rogers, R. G., Nam, C. B., & Ellison, C. G. (1999). Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality. Demography, 36(2), 273–285.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  18. Iannaccone, L. R. (1994). Why strict churches are strong. American Journal of Sociology, 99(5), 1180–1211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Idler, E. L. (2011). Religion and adult mortality: Group- and individual-level perspectives. International handbook of adult mortality (pp. 345–377). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
  20. Jarvis, G. K., & Northcott, H. C. (1987). Religion and differences in morbidity and mortality. Social Science and Medicine, 25(7), 813–824.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  21. Kass, J. D., Friedman, R., Leserman, J., Zuttermeister, P. C., & Benson, H. (1991). Health outcomes and a new index of spiritual experience. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30(2), 203–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Koenig, H., King, D., & Carson, V. B. (2012). Mortality. Handbook of religion and health (2nd ed., pp. 468–491). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  23. Koenig, H., McCullough, M. E., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Mortality. Handbook of Religion and Health (pp. 318–330). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  24. Levin, J. (2001). God, faith, and health. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
  25. Levin, J., Chatters, L. M., & Taylor, R. J. (2011). Theory in religion, aging, and health: An overview. Journal of Religion and Health, 50(2), 389–406.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  26. Levin, J. S., & Schiller, P. I. (1987). Is there a religious factor in health? Journal of Religion and Health, 26(1), 9–35.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  27. Lucchetti, G., Lucchetti, A. L. G., & Koenig, H. G. (2011). Impact of spirituality/religiosity on mortality: Comparison with other health interventions. Explore-The Journal of Science and Healing, 7(4), 234–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. McCullough, M. E., Hoyt, W. T., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & Thoresen, C. (2000). Religious involvement and mortality: A meta-analytic review. Health Psychology, 19(3), 211–222.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  29. Moulton, B. E., & Sherkat, D. E. (2012). Specifying the effects of religious participation and educational attainment on mortality risk for US adults. Sociological Spectrum, 32(1), 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Muennig, P., Johnson, G., Kim, J., Smith, T. W., & Rosen, Z. (2011). The General Social Survey-National Death Index: An innovative new dataset for the social sciences. BMC Research Notes, 4, 385.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  31. Musick, M. A., House, J. S., & Williams, D. R. (2004). Attendance at religious services and mortality in a national sample. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 45(2), 198–213.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  32. Nicholson, A., Rose, R., & Bobak, M. (2010). Associations between different dimensions of religious involvement and self-rated health in diverse European populations. Health Psychology, 29(2), 227–235.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  33. Oman, D., Kurata, J. H., Strawbridge, W. J., & Cohen, R. D. (2002). Religious attendance and cause of death over 31 years. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 32(1), 69–89.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  34. Paragament, K. I. (2002). The bitter and the sweet: An evaluation of the costs and benefits of religiousness. Psychological Inquiry: An International Journal for the Advancement of Psychological Theory, 13(3), 168–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Ploch, D. R., & Hastings, D. W. (1994). Graphic presentations of church attendance using General Social Survey Data. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 33(1), 16–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Powell, L. H., Shahabi, L., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Religion and spirituality: Linkages to physical health. The American Psychologist, 58(1), 36–52.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  37. Rippentrop, A. E., Altmaier, E. M., Chen, J. J., Found, E. M., & Keffala, V. J. (2005). The relationship between religion/spirituality and physical health, mental health, and pain in a chronic pain population. Pain, 116, 311–321.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  38. Sharp, S. (2010). How does prayer help manage emotions? Social Psychological Quarterly, 73(4), 417–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Silton, N., Flannelly, K. J., Galek, K., & Ellison, C. G. (2013). Beliefs about god and mental health among American adults. Journal of Religion and Health,. doi: 10.1007/s10943-013-9712-3.Google Scholar
  40. Smith, T. W., Marsden, P., Hout, M., & Kim, J. (2011). General social surveys, 1972–2010: Cumulative codebook. Chicago: NORC.Google Scholar
  41. Steensland, B., Park, J. Z., Regnerus, M. D., Robinson, L. D., Wilcox, W. B., & Woodberry, R. D. (2000). The measure of American religion: Toward improving the state of the art. Social Forces, 79(1), 291–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Strawbridge, W. J., Cohen, R. D., Shema, S. J., & Kaplan, G. A. (1997). Frequent attendance at religious services and mortality over 28 years. American Journal of Public Health, 87(6), 957–961.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  43. Sullivan, A. R. (2010). Mortality differentials and religion in the United States: Religious affiliation and attendance. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 49(4), 740–753.PubMedCentralCrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of SociologySungkyunkwan UniversitySeoulKorea
  2. 2.GSSNORC at the University of ChicagoChicagoUSA
  3. 3.Department of SociologyYonsei UniversitySeoulKorea

Personalised recommendations