1 / 27

RESEARCH IN FAITH AND HEALTH IN SECULAR SOCIETY May 18 th 2010 University of Southern Denmark

Reconsidering survival and church attendance in modern Denmark - an invitation to creative thinking. RESEARCH IN FAITH AND HEALTH IN SECULAR SOCIETY May 18 th 2010 University of Southern Denmark Peter la Cour , ph.d . Multidisciplinary Pain Center, National Hospital, Copenhagen.

salim
Download Presentation

RESEARCH IN FAITH AND HEALTH IN SECULAR SOCIETY May 18 th 2010 University of Southern Denmark

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Reconsideringsurvival and churchattendance in modernDenmark- an invitation to creativethinking RESEARCH IN FAITH AND HEALTH IN SECULAR SOCIETY May 18th 2010 University of Southern Denmark Peter la Cour, ph.d. Multidisciplinary Pain Center, National Hospital, Copenhagen

  2. YoichiChida, Andrew Steptoe, Lynda H. Powell: Religiosity/Spirituality and Mortality. A Systematic Quantitative Review (2009). (Included studies = 69)

  3. General findings: Churchattendanceassociateswithlowermortality Private religiosity (prayer, TV-sermonsetc) usually do not associatewithlowmortality – due to ”fox-hole-religiousity” Long time meditation associateswithlowerbloodpressure and changes in brainstructure

  4. WHY? Theoretical diagramover possiblecausalpaths(Koenig 1999)

  5. Religion and survivalA 20-year follow-upon 734 Danesborn in 1914Peter la Cour, Kirsten Avlund, Kirsten Schultz-Larsen (2006) Glostrup 1914-cohorte: • 734 persons • Real medical examination and personal interviews as 70-year old in 1984 • 20 year follow-up on death i 2004 (and 2005)

  6. Measures of religion “Are you a member of a religious community?” a) Folkekirke b) Katolic c) Mosaic d) Other e) Not a member “Does it mean anything to you?”= Importance of affiliation (a) yes, (b) no, (c) Don’t know “Are you attending church?”= Church attendance (a) never, (b) rarely (i.e. just religious ceremonies), (c) often (i.e. more than religious ceremonies.) “Do you listen to religious radio orTV?” =Religious media Answers handled as above.

  7. Control-variables Gender, education Physical and mental health (someconstructed and computed) Social connections (someconstructed and computed) Health behaviors

  8. Importance of membership

  9. Churchattendance 1

  10. Churchattendance 2

  11. Church attendance

  12. Bothgender

  13. Men

  14. Women

  15. Raw, computed means 2004 Importance Suvival, Yes = 83.40 year (SD .37) No = 81.80 year (SD .35)(p <. 001) (computed survival limited to 90.22). Big gender differences: Women, difference 1.26 år, (p = .03) Men, difference 0.30 år, (p = NS) Church attendance in 1984 Survival for church attenders = 83.30 years (SD .28) Non-attenders = 81.33 (SD .39), (p for difference <.001, computed survival limited to 90.22). Women, difference 2.19 year (p = .02) Men, difference 1.34 years, (p = .04) Religious mediai 1984 User = 82.79 (SD .33) Non-user = 82.43 (SD .33) Women, difference 0.57 years, NS Men, difference - 1.25 years, NS

  16. Raw, computed means 2005 Church attendance?in 1984 Survival for attenders = 83.54 years (SD .30) Non-attenders = 81.48 (SD .41), (p for difference <.001, computed survival limited to 91.07). women, difference 2.22 years, (p = .02) men, difference 1.43 years, (p = .04)

  17. Explanations? • How to explain/understand the effects of churchattendance? • How to explain/understand the gender differences? Are the explaining variables genderspecific? One ortwoquestions?

  18. What it is notexplaningthings: The explanation is not the church attendance in itself! The dichotomized church attendance showed significance when done ”often + rare” versus ”never” - not ”often” versus ”rare + never”

  19. What it is notexplaningthings: The explanation is not usual lifestyle factors: Tobacco – 4% difference, non-sign Alcohol – 1 % difference, non-sign BMI – 8 % difference, significant, but the wrongway!

  20. Other suggestions Forgiveness – mediating all /nearly all religious/(mental) healthmeassures in three American samples (Lawler-Row 2010) Anyreasonthisshouldbe the case i Denmark? Anyreasonthat it shouldbegenderspecific?

  21. Remarks • When analysis are done gender specific, some gender differences are found, but not many. • There is some litteratureon social relations, altruism and physical and mental health • The issues are about both giving and receiving help (not altruism)

  22. If social connectionsare the binding tie - aretheyconfounders (conditions) or a mediators (results of) churchattendance?Wereally do not know….. Churchattendance Survival Con-founder? Medi-ator? Giving and receivinghelp

  23. Survival is still an enigma! • Lackof social connections: a confounder (condition) or a mediator (result of) nevergoing to church i secular society? • Howcangender differences beunderstood? • The mainsignificanteffectis completelyun-explained!

More Related