Religion among disabled and nondisabled persons I: cross-sectional patterns in health practices, social activities, and well-being

Abstract

What is the relationship between religious involvement and functional disability among elderly people? Is being disabled different for those who frequently attend religious services? Does religious involvement have an effect on subsequent change in disability? Deriving our hypotheses from traditional theories in the sociology of religion, these questions are explored in these two related articles. Both employ data from the New Haven site of the Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (N = 2812). In the first, cross-sectional correlates of religious involvement and disability are examined at the baseline of the study, including multiple indicators of health practices, social activities, and subjective well-being. We test for interactions between religious attendance and disability. Findings are (a) that religious involvement in 1982 is tied to a broad array of behavioral and psychosocial resources, (b) that these resources are associated primarily with attendance at services, and not with subjective feelings of religiousness, and (c) that some of these associations are especially pronounced among disabled respondents.