Pezzella Frank S, Vlahos Sophia
Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524W. 59 St. Suite 2111, New York, NY, 10019, USA,
J Relig Health. 2014 Dec;53(6):1873-84. doi: 10.1007/s10943-014-9847-x.
Formerly incarcerated persons have been found to sustain disproportionate rates of infectious and chronic diseases that place them at elevated levels of morbidity and mortality. However, prior research has found that religiosity moderates risks for poor health outcomes. We assess the moderating influence of religiosity on non-compliance with health maintenance and risk behaviors found to be robust predictors of poor health. Findings indicated that religiosity was not significantly associated with health maintenance behaviors. However, religiosity did demonstrate a significant negative relationship with reductions in health risk behaviors including marginal reductions in prior substance dependency and significant reductions in opinions on extramarital and unprotected sex practices contrary to prior research findings of the prevalence of high sexual risk behaviors. Findings validate prior research that found this population at sustained risk for illness. However, the study demonstrated a clear inverse relationship between religion and health risk behaviors found to be prevalent among formerly incarcerated men. Results from this exploratory investigation suggest that the moderating influence of religion on high risk behaviors of formerly incarcerated men should be examined over a much longer study period with controls to tease out the unfettered influence of religion.
研究发现，曾经入狱的人群感染性疾病和慢性疾病的发病率过高，这使他们的发病和死亡风险增加。然而，先前的研究发现，宗教信仰能够缓和健康状况不佳的风险。我们评估宗教信仰对不遵守健康维护行为以及风险行为的缓和影响，这些行为被发现是健康状况不佳的有力预测因素。研究结果表明，宗教信仰与健康维护行为没有显著关联。然而，宗教信仰确实与健康风险行为的减少呈现出显著的负相关关系，包括先前物质依赖的轻微减少，以及与婚前性行为和无保护性行为观念的显著减少，这与先前关于高性风险行为普遍存在的研究结果相反。研究结果证实了先前的研究，即该人群持续面临患病风险。然而，该研究表明，宗教与在曾经入狱男性中普遍存在的健康风险行为之间存在明显的负相关关系。这项探索性调查的结果表明，应在更长的研究期间并设置对照组，以梳理出宗教信仰不受限制的影响，从而研究宗教信仰对曾经入狱男性高风险行为的缓和作用。
