Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, Haartmaninkatu 3, 00290, Helsinki, Finland.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2024 May;59(5):871-878. doi: 10.1007/s00127-023-02497-x. Epub 2023 Jun 7.
To examine whether trajectories of health (depressive symptoms, psychological wellbeing, self-rated health, and body mass index) and health behaviors (smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and cannabis use) changed for individuals who first reported at least monthly religious attendance and then in subsequent study waves reported no active religious attendance.
Data were from four cohort studies from the United States collected between 1996 and 2018: National Longitudinal Survey of 1997 (NLSY1997); National Longitudinal Survey of Young Adults (NLSY-YA); Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-TA); and Health and Retirement Study (HRS) with a total n = 6592 individuals and 37,743 person-observations.
None of the 10-year trajectories of health or health behaviors changed for the worse after the change from active to inactive religious attendance. Instead, the adverse trends were observed already during the time of active religious attendance.
These results suggest that religious disengagement is a correlate-not a cause-of a life course characterized by poorer health and health behaviors. The religious decline caused by people leaving their religion is unlikely to influence population health.
研究那些最初报告至少每月参加一次宗教活动，随后在后续研究波次报告不再参加宗教活动的个体，其健康状况（抑郁症状、心理幸福感、自我报告健康状况和体重指数）和健康行为（吸烟、大量饮酒、身体活动不足和大麻使用）是否发生变化。
数据来自美国四个队列研究，收集时间为 1996 年至 2018 年：1997 年全国纵向调查（NLSY1997）；青年纵向研究（NLSY-YA）；收入动态面板研究的成年过渡期补充调查（PSID-TA）；以及健康与退休研究（HRS），共涉及 6592 名个体和 37743 人次观察。
从积极宗教参与转变为不活跃宗教参与后，健康或健康行为的 10 年轨迹没有任何恶化的趋势。相反，在积极参加宗教活动期间就已经观察到了不良趋势。
这些结果表明，宗教疏离是健康和健康行为较差的生命历程的一个相关因素，而不是原因。由于人们离开宗教而导致的宗教衰落不太可能影响人口健康。
