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

合作研究：美国的宗教参与和死亡率

• 批准号: 0243189
• 负责人: Robert Hummer
• 金额: $ 4.97万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-05-15 至 2005-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0243189&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Religious; Involvement; Mortality

Collborative Research SES- 0243189 SES-0243249 Robert Hummer Richard Rogers Christopher Ellison Jason Boardman University of Texas at Austin University of Colorado at BoulderReligion 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.

Collorative Research SES-0243189 SES-0243249 Robert Hummer Richard Richard Rogers Christopher Ellison Jason Boardman在科罗拉多大学奥斯汀大学博尔德利统治者在美国的科罗拉多大学奥斯汀分校仍然是充满活力的文化和机构在美国。由于宗教对美国社会的强烈而持续的重要性，了解宗教参与是否与死亡率风险有关，因为最近的一些研究发现，确定这种关系的大小和机制。关于该主题的主要新工作已广泛宣传，并对社会科学和医学文献产生了重大影响。然而，这一研究领域仍然存在高度争议，理论和方法论欠发达且缺乏深度。 通过完成对许多现有数据集的次要分析，这项研究将解决许多当前的宗教死亡文献特征的当前局限性。 具体而言，它将解决选择性是否负责死亡与宗教之间的关联的问题。可能会影响宗教参与和死亡率的许多因素可以解释这种统计关联。但是，这也许是科学界需要解决的关键问题，以便了解宗教死亡关系是否可以被视为因果关系或虚假。其次，只有非常有限的研究才考虑了宗教参与对人口亚组内死亡率的差异影响。这种对当代美国各种人口统计学景观的注意力不集中可能导致经验发现，尽管在整个人口中，但在整个人群中可能是真实的，但掩盖了人口内的实质性异质性。第三，只有很少注意受宗教参与影响的特定死亡原因。第四，直到最近才有几个基于人群的数据来源，可以询问国家一级的宗教参与与死亡率之间的关联。因此，与社会死亡率文献中核心的其他社会和人口统计学因素（例如SES，种族/种族，性别，年龄，婚姻状况）相比，对美国对健康和寿命的理解至关重要，有关宗教对健康和死亡率的知识显然有限。医学文献中存在一场重大辩论，涉及医学院是否应该教授有关宗教和健康的课程，以及医生是否应该使用宗教健康死亡率文献作为告知其与患者关系的指南之一。 但是，迄今为止的证据过于暂时，无法得出结论，宗教参与促进了健康，尽管很明显，最近的宗教参与似乎正在依靠这种方式。但是，在完全解决了选择性问题之前，有关整体关系的虚假性的问题将仍然存在。除了整体关系之外，受影响的特定社会和人口群体以及宗教可能影响健康和死亡率的特定机制，现在才开始被利用。因此，该项目有可能阐明引起公众关注的社会学问题，以及社会科学和医学界的关注。此外，在社会学中，从医学社会学到人口统计学再到宗教社会学的这一主题都有很大的兴趣，来自各个领域的教职员工和研究人员都参与研究，并对研究结果感兴趣。 其次，该项目将进一步促进得克萨斯州和科罗拉多大学之间的长期和富有成效的伙伴关系。