Religion, Spirituality and Health Flashcards
2008 U.S. Religion statistics
56% say religion is “very important” in their lives
39% attend religious services at least once per week
84% of Americans report a religious affiliation
71% believe in God
(Pew Research Center, 2008)
Religion would be considered your “X” variable
Religiousness
involves behaviors derived from established traditions related to sacred reality that develop over time within a community
Spirituality
involves beliefs and experiences related to transcendent or sacred reality
Dimensions of religion and spirituality
Religion and Spirituality are both dimensions of human experience that involve beliefs - not all religious people are spiritual and not all spiritual people are religious
Self-identification as religious, spiritual Private religious behaviors Public religious behaviors Religious service attendance Religious commitment Beliefs Spiritual experiences
Religion and CVD Mortality
was looking for connection btwn hard-water and atherosclerosis and didn’t find this, but found:
men who attended church less than once a week had 2 times higher risk of mortality due to atherosclerosis
Religion associated with CVD mortality
In men (Comstock, 1971)
Religious strength/comfort predicted better survival 6 months after open heart surgery (Oxman et al., 1995)
-those who found strength and comfort had lower risk of CVD
Religion and Mortality
Meta-analysis of 42 studies (btwn 1971 and 2000) with 125,826 participants shows a significant association between religious involvement and mortality (McCullough et al., 2000)
-Overall, 30% increased likelihood of survival for those high in religious involvement
Effect significant across age, gender, sex, length of follow-up period (controlled for these and still found effect)
Mechanisms: Religion and Blood Pressure
NHANES study
In an epidemiological sample of 14,475 adults, attending religious services weekly or more was associated with:
-Lower overall blood pressure
-Reduced prevalence of hypertension
(Gillum & Ingram, 2006)
-After adjusting for age, gender, race, marital status, BMI, cigarette use, health status, region, urbanicity
-has been found in many different epidemiological studies but they hadn’t looked at it experimentally
BP in the Lab:
In sample of 108 undergrads, greater religious involvement associated with lower SBP reactivity to TSST-like task
-Only for students with high social support - moderated by perceived social support
(Chen & Contrada, 2007)
-measured how involved they were in religious things and how much strength and comfort they found from it
-also measured how much social support they had
-speech was videotaped and told people would be watching then did 5 min mental arithmetic task
Mechanisms: Religion and Inflammation
Religious attendance associated with…
- lower CRP (King et al., 2001 & 2002; Ford et al., 2006) -longterm marker of inflammation
- lower fibrinogen (Loucks et al., 2005) -associated with inflammatory processes
- lower IL-6 (Koenig et al., 1997; Lutgendorf et al., 2004) - pro-inflammatory cytokine
Prospective study of 557 older adults
interviewed about the number of religious services they attended (baseline)
-15% of sample attending religious services more than once a week
6 years later took blood samples
12 years in collected data on mortality (who died and what did they die from)
-Associated with lower likelihood of mortality
-Associated with lower IL-6 levels than those who never attended
were able to test whether association between religious attendance and mortality were mediated by inflammation (and they are)
Mechanisms: Religion and Immunity
Religiousness and Spirituality (prayed more, attended religious services, had more spiritual discussions with friends) associated with higher CD4+ cell counts in HIV patients, cross-sectionally and prospectively (Woods et al., 1999; Ironson et al., 2006)
Spirituality (spiritual expression or talking about spiritual experiences) associated with NK cells, lymphocytes in cancer patients (Sephton et al., 2001; Lissoni et al., 2008)
Mechanisms: Religion and Cortisol
Religiousness and Spirituality associated with cortisol in AIDS patients; cortisol mediates association with long-term survival (Ironson et al., 2002; Carrico et al., 2006)
Religiousness predicts lower cortisol after stress task, spirituality does not (Tartaro et al., 2005)
-only those high in religiousness, NOT spirituality, had lower levels of cortisol
Religion-Health Mechanisms
Social Involvement
- Better marriage and family relationships
- Social support from religious community
- Prosocial behaviors: forgiveness, gratitude
Positive emotions and experiences
- Finding meaning, benefit finding
- Emotion regulation and coping styles
Mental Health
-this may affect physical health as well
Health Behaviors
-religious people do less drinking, less risky sexual behavior, less smoking, etc.
Spirituality-Health Mechanisms
Social Support Stress -may buffer how you experience stress Mental Health Health behaviors
Positive emotions and experiences
- Finding meaning
- Mindfulness and acceptance
- Relationship to the Self
- Optimism, positive affect
Positive Emotions: Gratitude
Gratitude: feeling of acknowledgement on receiving something of value from another person
Religious and spiritual traditions emphasize gratitude (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000)
Church attendance associated with increase in gratitude over 2 years (Krause, 2009)
Gratitude associated with health outcomes:
- Depression
- Illness symptoms
- Blood pressure
Religion and Health Behaviors
Less cigarette smoking (Strawbridge et al., 2001; Whooley et al., 2002)
Better diet (Lytle et al., 2003; Locher et al., 2005) More physical activity (Strawbridge et al., 2001; Hill et al., 2006; Gillum, 2006)
Others: less risky sex, better medical screening, less alcohol consumption, lower substance use
Religion and Depression
Meta-analysis (largely cross-sectional) of 147 studies with 98,975 participants shows a significant association between religiousness and depressive symptoms (Smith et al., 2003)
Effect significant across gender, race, age
Effect strongest for people undergoing stressful life events
