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
Religion and Postpartum Depression
Religiousness and religious attendance protected against increases in depressive symptoms over the first 6 months after birth
- mothers who weren’t very religious had increases in the first 6 months after birth of their child
- mothers who were religious didn’t have these increases - buffering effects
Spirituality and PPD
more spiritual no increase
low spiritual increase
-same idea as religious PPD
Summary of Religion and spirituality
Z variables: Religiousness is associated with all-cause mortality and CVD-related mortality
Y variables:
-Blood pressure
-Inflammation
-Immunity
-Cortisol
X-Y-Z model for religion, IL-6, mortality!
Mechanisms that might explain the X-Y associations:
- Health behaviors
- Mental health
- Social factors
- Positive emotional and psychological factors
