Collaborative Research: Religious Involvement and Mortality in the U.S.

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

Collborative Research SES- 0243189 SES-0243249 Robert Hummer Richard Rogers Christopher Ellison Jason Boardman University of Texas at Austin University of Colorado at Boulder Religion remains a vibrant cultural and institutional presence in the US. With the strong and continuing importance of religion to American society, it is particularly important to understand whether religious involvement is related to mortality risks as some recent research finds and, if so, to determine the magnitude and mechanisms that characterize this relationship. Major new work on the topic has been widely publicized and has made a major impact in both the social science and medical literatures. Nevertheless, this area of research remains highly controversial, theoretically and methodologically underdeveloped, and lacking in depth. Through completing secondary analyses of a number of existing datasets this research will tackle a number of other current limitations that characterize the religion-mortality literature. Specifically, it will address the issue of whether selectivity is responsible for the association between mortality and religion. There are a number of factors that may influence both religious involvement and mortality that can account for this statistical association. However, this is perhaps the key question that needs to be addressed by the scientific community in order to understand whether the religion-mortality relationship may be considered causal or spurious. Second, only very limited research has considered the differential effects of religious involvement on mortality within subgroups of the population. This inattention to the diverse demographic landscape of the contemporary US can lead to empirical findings that, while potentially true among the whole population, mask substantial heterogeneity within the population. Third, only scant attention has been given to the specific causes of death that are influenced by religious involvement. Fourth, only recently have several population-based data sources become available that allow inquiry into the association between religious involvement and mortality at the national level. Thus, compared to other social and demographic factors that are central in the sociological mortality literature (e.g., SES, race/ethnicity, gender, age, marital status) and critical to the understanding of health and longevity in the United States, knowledge regarding religious influences on health and mortality is clearly limited. There is a major debate in the medical literature about whether medical schools should teach courses on religion and health and about whether physicians should or should not use the religion health-mortality literature as one of the guides toward informing their relationships with patients. However, the evidence to date is far too tentative to conclude that religious involvement promotes health, although it is clear that the recent seems to be leaning that way. But until the issues of selectivity are fully addressed, questions regarding the spuriousness of the overall relationship will remain. Beyond the overall relationship, the specific social and demographic groups that are influenced, and the specific mechanisms by which religion may influence health and mortality, are just now beginning to be tapped. Thus, this project has the potential to shed light on sociological issues that have captured substantial public attention, as well as the attention of both the social scientific and medical communities. Further, within sociology, there is substantial interest in this subject matter ranging from medical sociology to demography to the sociology of religion, with faculty members and students from each of these areas involved in the research and interested in the findings. Second, the project will further contribute to the long-standing and very productive partnership between the Universities of Texas and Colorado.