IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v66y2008i2p221-231.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The natural history of male mental health: Health and religious involvement

Author

Listed:
  • Vaillant, George
  • Templeton, Janice
  • Ardelt, Monika
  • Meyer, Stephanie E.

Abstract

In prior studies, the effect of religious involvement upon physical health has shown generally positive results, but these studies have been marred by confounders. The 65-year-old US prospective Study of Adult Development has offered an opportunity to repeat these studies with somewhat better control over confounders. The physical and mental health of 224 Harvard University sophomores was monitored for 65 years. Their religious involvement from church attendance to private spirituality was prospectively monitored every 2-4 years from age 47 to 85. In this analysis we focus on the male respondent. We found that religious involvement, no matter how measured was uncorrelated with their late life physical, mental and social well-being. The exception was that the 44 men with major depression or with multiple negative life events were twice as likely to manifest high religious involvement as men with the least "stress." If these findings can be generalized, they suggest that religious involvement may exert the greatest mental health benefits on people with the fewest alternative social and personal resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Vaillant, George & Templeton, Janice & Ardelt, Monika & Meyer, Stephanie E., 2008. "The natural history of male mental health: Health and religious involvement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 221-231, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:2:p:221-231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(07)00511-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williams, David R. & Larson, David B. & Buckler, Robert E. & Heckmann, Richard C. & Pyle, Caroline M., 1991. "Religion and psychological distress in a community sample," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 1257-1262, January.
    2. la Cour, Peter & Avlund, Kirsten & Schultz-Larsen, Kirsten, 2006. "Religion and survival in a secular region. A twenty year follow-up of 734 Danish adults born in 1914," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 157-164, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tampubolon, Gindo & Hanandita, Wulung, 2014. "Poverty and mental health in Indonesia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 20-27.
    2. Nicholson, Amanda & Rose, Richard & Bobak, Martin, 2009. "Association between attendance at religious services and self-reported health in 22 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 519-528, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, 2021. "In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 541-583.
    2. Bradshaw, Matt & Ellison, Christopher G., 2010. "Financial hardship and psychological distress: Exploring the buffering effects of religion," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 196-204, July.
    3. O'Reilly, Dermot & Rosato, Michael, 2008. "Religious affiliation and mortality in Northern Ireland: Beyond Catholic and Protestant," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 1637-1645, April.
    4. Mohsen Joshanloo & Dan Weijers, 2016. "Religiosity Moderates the Relationship between Income Inequality and Life Satisfaction across the Globe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(2), pages 731-750, September.
    5. Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, 2019. "Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2295-2321.
    6. Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, 2013. "Origins of Religiousness: The Role of Natural Disasters," Discussion Papers 13-02, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. Vincenzo Alfano & Salvatore Ercolano & Gaetano Vecchione, 2020. "Religious Attendance and Covid-19. Evidences from Italian Regions," CESifo Working Paper Series 8596, CESifo.
    8. Miles S. Kimball & Colter M. Mitchell & Arland D. Thornton & Linda C. Young-Demarco, 2009. "Empirics on the Origins of Preferences: The Case of College Major and Religiosity," NBER Working Papers 15182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Eugene Kutcher & Jennifer Bragger & Ofelia Rodriguez-Srednicki & Jamie Masco, 2010. "The Role of Religiosity in Stress, Job Attitudes, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(2), pages 319-337, August.
    10. Nicholson, Amanda & Rose, Richard & Bobak, Martin, 2009. "Association between attendance at religious services and self-reported health in 22 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 519-528, August.
    11. Husni Mohd Radzi & Lilie Zahara Ramly & Farhaniza Ghazali & Sapora Sipon & Khatijah Othman, 2014. "Religious and Spiritual Coping Used by Student in Dealing With Stress and Anxiety," International Journal of Asian Social Science, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(2), pages 314-319, February.
    12. William Lauder & Kerry Mummery & Siobhan Sharkey, 2006. "Social capital, age and religiosity in people who are lonely," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 334-340, March.
    13. Jeff Levin, 2013. "Religion and Mental Health Among Israeli Jews: Findings from the SHARE-Israel Study," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 769-784, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:2:p:221-231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.