Cognitive function among religious and non-religious Europeans: a cross-national cohort study

Abstract

Objectives

To examine the associations between several measures and categories of religiosity and cognitive function across sex and European regions.

Methods

We conducted a longitudinal study including 17,756 Europeans aged 50 and older who participated in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe wave 1. Participants were followed for up to 15 years. Associations were analyzed using linear mixed effects models adjusted for several potential confounders.

Results

Religious service attendance was consistently associated with better cognitive function (coefficient: 1.04, 95% CI 0.71; 1.37) across sex and European regions. Praying was also associated with better cognitive function but only among men (coefficient: 0.55, 95% CI 0.15; 0.96). However, individuals who received religious education from their parents had poorer cognitive function (coefficient: −0.59, 95% CI −0.93; −0.25). The association persisted in women and among both sexes in Western Europe. Comparing different religious categories to the non-religious, participants who were religious in childhood showed an inverse association with cognitive function, while persistently religious men exhibited better cognitive function.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate that religious service attendance and, to a certain extent, prayer is associated with better cognitive function. However, receiving religious education in childhood may be linked to lower cognitive function.

Keywords:

• Religiosity
• spirituality and health
• religious service attendance
• praying
• religious education
• cognitive function
• SHARE

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to Rikke Syrak Hansen, cand. scient. san. publ., for providing valuable input on the present study. This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (DOIs: 10.6103/SHARE.w1.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w2.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w4.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w5.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w6.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w7.800, 10.6103/SHARE.w8.800), see Börsch-Supan et al. (2013) for methodological details (Börsch-Supan et al., 2013).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data from SHARE is globally available for scientific use at no cost: http://www. share-project.org/data-access.html

Additional information

Funding

The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782, SHARE-COVID19: GA N°101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org). This research was funded by Demography of Sex Differences in Health and Survival, grant number P01 AG031719 (LJA).