The religion variable in community health promotion and illness prevention

Abstract

Religion is a source of beliefs and practices, which can in turn influence health behaviors. Therefore, religious communities represent potential public health partners to improve well-being across economic and ethnic diversity. This issue of the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community presents six empirical studies with a breadth of methodologies, and a range of subjects. The associations of religion with cancer fatalism, prenatal substance abuse, bereavement, suicide prevention, clergy mental health and attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act are reported here. These research findings support the key importance of community. Like community, religion is complex. This issue's studies demonstrate the need to include ethnicity in analyses as well as the necessity to measure both religious belief and practice. Consistently, religious community participation predicted more positive outcomes than one's level of belief.

Keywords:

• Affordable care act
• bereavement
• cancer fatalism
• clergy
• ethnicity
• prenatal substance abuse
• religious practice
• suicide prevention

Acknowledgments

The work of Dr. Cuevas was partially supported by the Cancer Disparities Research Network/Geographic Management Program (GMaP) Region 4 (3 P30 CA006927-52S2). The work of Dr. Milstein was partially supported by the PSC-CUNY Research Award Program (# 60256-00 48). The editors of this issue would also like to thank the 29 authors who contributed their research and insights through their papers.