The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66570

Idethia Shevon Harvey, MPH¹, Donald Musa, MA², and Myrna Silverman, PhD¹. (1) Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 130 Desoto Street, 208 Parran Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, 412-624-6174, idethiaharvey@hotmail.com, (2) University Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh, 121 University Place, Room 402, Pittsburgh, PA 15261

While both religiosity and certain personality traits, such as optimism, have been found to be related to better health of chronically-ill older adults, there is little research addressing the combined effects of religion and personality traits on health and well being in this population. This paper explores the connections between optimism, religiosity, and health status in a sample of community-dwelling adults, age 65 or older, with osteoarthritis or ischemic heart disease. The sample was randomly drawn, stratified by race and gender, from the Medicare Enrollment List for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. An in-depth, face-to-face interview was conducted with 1128 participants (523 African Americans; 605 Non-African Americans). Religiosity was measured by the importance of spirituality and religious faith, frequency of attendance at religious services, and frequency of prayer; optimism by the Revised Life Orientation Test; and physical and mental health by the SF-36. More frequent religious attendance and a greater importance of spirituality and faith were associated with higher levels of optimism; however, more frequent prayer was not related to greater optimism. Religious attendance and optimism were found to have largely independent positive effects on both physical and mental health. However, the effects of optimism on physical health were generally found to be greatest among those with lower levels of religiosity. In contrast, among those with osteoarthritis (but not heart disease), the effects of optimism on mental health for were found to be greatest among those with higher levels of religiosity. The implications of these findings and additional differences by race, gender and disease will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

Learning objectives:
• Describe research findings associating optimism and religion to physical and mental health outcomes.
• Identify future research questions needing to be addressed.

Keywords: Aging, Religion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.