Religion and healthy lifestyle behaviors among postmenopausal women: the women’s health initiative

Are religiosity and prayer use related with multiple behavioural risk factors for chronic diseases in European adults aged 50+ years?

“…37 Further, a recent study among 71,689 US postmenopausal women reported that those with higher levels of attendance in religious activities had significantly lower odds of engaging in physical activity (odds ratio ¼ 0.87), but significantly higher odds for non-smoking (odds ratio ¼ 2.27) or moderate drinking (odds ratio ¼ 2.19). 38 In contrast, Hill and colleagues 11,12 estimated a clustering index (the Healthy Lifestyle Index) from twelve individual p u b l i c h e a l t h 1 2 9 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 4 3 6 e4 4 3 healthy behaviours such as non-smoking, non/moderate drinking, walking etc, and found that religious individuals tended to engage in healthier lifestyles (beta ¼ 0.09, P < 0.001). It is noteworthy that religiosity was defined differently in all these studies, and included various religious involvement measures, such as religious attendance, participation, frequency of prayer, Bible reading etc.…”

Advancing our understanding of religion and spirituality in the context of behavioral medicine

“…RS have been linked to lower levels of cigarette smoking (e.g., Whooley et al, 2002) and higher levels of preventive health behaviors [e.g., flu shots, cholesterol screening, breast self-exams, mammograms, pap smears, and prostate screening (Benjamins & Brown, 2004)]. Preventive health behaviors have also been linked to RS in many other samples, including a nationally representative sample of Presbyterian women (Benjamins et al, 2006), a large national population of community-dwelling women (Salmoirago-Blotcher et al, 2011), a state-wide representative study of Texas residents (Hill et al, 2007), and a sample of disenfranchised elderly African Americans (Aaron et al, 2003). RS have been related to lower levels of risky health behaviors in diverse samples including inner-city cocaine-using methadone-maintained patients (Avants et al, 2006) and pregnant women in Appalachia (Jesse & Reed, 2006).…”

“…RS are associated with mental health variables (Koenig, 2012) as well as salutary health behaviors (Benjamins, 2006; Salmoirago-Blotcher et al, 2011) and are linked to a number of improved health and health-relevant outcomes among individuals with a variety of conditions such as cardiovascular disease (Chida et al, 2009), cancer (Laubmeier et al, 2004), and substance abuse (Geppert et al, 2007). Although characterized as “controversial” (Blumenthal et al, 2007; p. 506), peer-reviewed research appears to indicate a magnitude of associations between RS and health outcomes ranging from “small” to “large” (Hwang et al, 2011).…”

Positive and negative associations between adolescents' religiousness and health behaviors via self-regulation

“…Similarly, another study demonstrated that a sample of 71,689 adult women were more likely to actively monitor their health (e.g. mammograms & PAP smears) and have a higher dietary fiber intake if they reported higher attendance at religious services (Salmoirago-Blotcher et al, 2011). In a review of the relationship between religiousness and health, Koenig (2012) found that 68% of 33 reviewed studies indicated a significant positive relation between religiousness and physical activity (16% the inverse).…”