Religious Social Support and Hypertension Among Older North American Seventh-Day Adventists

Seventh-day Adventists have been noted for their unique lifestyle, religious practices and longevity. However, we know little about how religion is directly related to health in this group. Specifically, we know nothing about how religious social support is related to hypertension. Using data from t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religion and health 2016-04, Vol.55 (2), p.709-728
Main Authors: Charlemagne-Badal, Sherma J., Lee, Jerry W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Aging
Anticipation
Body mass index
Church attendance
Clinical Psychology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Emotional support
Ethnicity
Female
Health Surveys - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Hypertension
Hypertension - epidemiology
Lifestyle
Logistic regression
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
North America - epidemiology
Original Paper
Protestantism
Public Health
Religion
Religious Studies
Seventh Day Adventist churches
Social interaction
Social Support
Vegetarianism
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Summary:Seventh-day Adventists have been noted for their unique lifestyle, religious practices and longevity. However, we know little about how religion is directly related to health in this group. Specifically, we know nothing about how religious social support is related to hypertension. Using data from the Biopsychosocial Religion and Health Study, we carried out a cross-sectional study of 9581 and a prospective study of 5720 North American Seventh-day Adventists examining new 534 cases of hypertension occurring up to 4 years later. We used binary logistic regression analyses to examine study hypotheses. Of the religious social support variables, in both the cross-sectional and prospective study only anticipated support significantly predicted hypertension, but the relationship was mediated by BMI. There were no significant race or gender differences. The favorable relationships between anticipated support and hypertension appear to be mediated by BMI and are an indication of how this dimension of religion combined with lifestyle promotes good health, specifically, reduced risk of hypertension.
ISSN:0022-4197
1573-6571
DOI:10.1007/s10943-015-0104-8