Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Religion and health in Europe: cultures, countries, context

  • COMMENTARY
  • Published:
European Journal of Epidemiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Much of the research on the relationships between religious participation and health comes from the United States. Studies in other geographic regions or cultural contexts is more sparse. Evidence presented by Ahrenfelt et al., and that from other research studies, is reviewed concerning the associations between religion and health within Europe and world-wide. The evidence within Europe suggests protective associations between various forms of religious participation and lower depression, lower mortality, and better self-rated health. Methodological challenges in such research are reviewed, and discussion is given as to whether a person-culture-fit explanation suffices to account for the existing data and to what other mechanisms might be operative.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Koenig HG, King DE, Carson VB. Handbook of religion and health. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Idler EL, editor. Religion as a social determinant of public health. New York: Oxford University Press; 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  3. VanderWeele TJ. Religion and health: a synthesis. In: Peteet JR, Balboni MJ, editors. Spirituality and religion within the culture of medicine: from evidence to practice. New York: Oxford University Press; 2017. p. 357–401.

    Google Scholar 

  4. VanderWeele TJ. Religious communities and human flourishing. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2017. doi:10.1177/096372141772152.

  5. VanderWeele TJ, Jackson JW, Li S. Causal inference and time-varying exposures: a case study of religion and mental health. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2016;51:1457–66.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Ahrenfeldt LJ, Möller S, Andersen-Ranberg K, Vitved AR, Lindahl-Jacobsen R, Hvidt NC. Religiousness and health in Europe. Eur J Epidemiol (in press).

  7. Musick MA, House JS, Williams DR. Attendance at religious services and mortality in a national sample. J Health Soc Behav. 2004;45(2):198–213.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. VanderWeele TJ, Yu J, Cozier YC, Wise L, Argentieri MA, Rosenberg L, Palmer JR, Shields AE. Religious service attendance, prayer, religious coping, and religious-spiritual identity as predictors of all-cause mortality in the Black Womens Health Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2017;185:515–22.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Maselko J, Hayward RD, Hanlon A, Buka S, Meador K. Religious service attendance and major depression: a case of reverse causality? Am J Epidemiol. 2012;175(6):576–83.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Li S, Okereke OI, Chang S-C, Kawachi I, VanderWeele TJ. Religious service attendance and depression among women—a prospective cohort study. Ann Behav Med. 2016;50:876–84.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. VanderWeele TJ. Re: religious service attendance and major depression: a case of reverse causality? Am J Epidemiol. 2013;177:275–6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Idler EL, Kasl SV. Religion among disabled and nondisabled elderly persons II: attendance at religious services as a predictor of the course of disability. J Gerontol Soc Sci. 1997;52B:S306–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Wasserstein RL, Lazar NA. The ASA’s statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. Am Stat. 2016;70(2):129–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Greenland S, Senn SJ, Rothman KJ, Carlin JB, Poole C, Goodman SN, Altman DG. Statistical tests, P-values, confidence intervals, and power: a guide to misinterpretations. Eur J Epidemiol. 2016;31(4):337–50.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Stang A, Poole C, Kuss O. The ongoing tyranny of statistical significance testing in biomedical research. Eur J Epidemiol. 2010;25:225–30.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. VanderWeele TJ. Re: the ongoing tyranny of statistical significance testing in biomedical research. Eur J Epidemiol. 2010;25:843.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. VanderWeele TJ. Outcome-wide epidemiology. Epidemiology. 2017;28:399–402.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Rothman KJ, Greenland S, Lash TL. Modern epidemiology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott; 2008 (Chapter 25).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Wakefield J. Ecologic studies revisited. Annu Rev Public Health. 2008;29:75–90.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Diener E, Tay L, Myers DG. The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out? J Personal Soc Psychol. 2011;101(6):1278–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Lim C, Putnam RD. Religion, social networks, and life satisfaction. Am Sociol Rev. 2010;75:914–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Zuckerman P. Atheism, secularity, and well-being: how the findings of social science counter negative stereotypes and assumptions. Sociol Compass. 2009;3(6):949–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Zuckerman P. Society without god: what the least religious nations can tell us about contentment. New York: New York University Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Hummer RA, Rogers RG, Nam CB, Ellison CG. Religious involvement and US adult mortality. Demography. 1999;36(2):273–85.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Strawbridge WJ, Cohen RD, Shema SJ, Kaplan GA. Frequent attendance at religious services and mortality over 28 years. Am J Public Health. 1997;87(6):957–61.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  26. Chida Y, Steptoe A, Powell LH. Religiosity/spirituality and mortality. A systematic quantitative review. Psychother Psychosom. 2009;78(2):81–90.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Li S, Stamfer M, Williams DR, VanderWeele TJ. Association between religious service attendance and mortality among women. JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(6):777–85.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Teinonen T, Vahlberg T, Isoaho R, Kivela SL. Religious attendance and 12-year survival in older persons. Age Ageing. 2005;34(4):406–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. la Cour P, Avlund K, Schultz-Larsen K. Religion and survival in a secular region. A twenty year follow-up of 734 Danish adults born in 1914. Soc Sci Med. 2006;62(1):157–64.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Litwin H. What really matters in the social network–mortality association? A multivariate examination among older Jewish-Israelis. Eur J Ageing. 2007;4(2):71–82.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  31. Yeager D, Glei DA, Au M, Lin H-S, Sloan RP, Weinstein M. Religious involvement and health outcomes among older persons in Taiwan. Soc Sci Med. 2006;63(8):2228–41.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Stavrova O. Religion, self-rated health, and mortality: whether religiosity delays death depends on the cultural context. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2015;6(8):911–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Durkheim E. Suicide: a study in sociology. New York: Free Press; 1897. p. 1951.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Spoerri A, Zwahlen M, Bopp M, Gutzwiller F, Egger M, Swiss National Cohort Study. Religion and assisted and non-assisted suicide in Switzerland: national cohort study. Int J Epidemiol. 2010;39(6):1486–94.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. VanderWeele TJ, Li S, Tsai A, Kawachi I. Association between religious service attendance and lower suicide among U.S. women. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73:845–51.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  36. Hayward RD, Elliott M. Cross-national analysis of the influence of cultural norms and government restrictions on the relationship between religion and well-being. Rev Relig Res. 2014;56:23–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. VanderWeele TJ. Explanation in causal inference: methods for mediation and interaction. New York: Oxford University Press; 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  38. VanderWeele TJ. Religious community in health, health behaviors, and well-being. In: Kivimaki M, Batty GD, Kawachi I, Steptoe A, editors. Handbook of psychosocial epidemiology. London: Routledge; 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Krause N, Hayward RD. Religion, meaning in life, and change in physical functioning during late adulthood. J Adult Dev. 2012;19:158–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Johnson BR, Jang SJ, Larson DB, Li SD. Does adolescent religious commitment matter? A reexamination of the effects of religiosity on delinquency. J Res Crime Delinq. 2001;38:22–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Johnson BR. More god, less crime: why faith matters and how it could matter more. West Conshohocken: Templeton Press; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Li S, Kubzansky LD, VanderWeele TJ. Religious service attendance, divorce, and remarriage among U.S. Women. Social Science Research Network. 2016. SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2891385 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2891385.

  43. Wilcox WB, Wolfinger NH. Soul mates: religion, sex, love, and marriage among African Americans and Latinos. New York: Oxford University Press; 2016.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  44. VanderWeele TJ. On the promotion of human flourishing. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2017;31:8148–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Tyler J. VanderWeele

Authors
  1. Tyler J. VanderWeele
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tyler J. VanderWeele.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

VanderWeele, T.J. Religion and health in Europe: cultures, countries, context. Eur J Epidemiol 32, 857–861 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-017-0310-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-017-0310-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation