Churchgoing Is Good For You, Study Shows

One of medical research's best kept secrets is that churchgoing helps individuals achieve better mental and physical health. Now, a new study publicized by the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR) shows a possible reason why: church attendance supplies an important setting for meaningful social contacts. These important social contacts are supports which have a positive impact on health. Says David B. Larson, M.D., president of NIHR, "This study measured many factors involving the quality and quantity of individualsÌ personal relationships, and attending religious services was shown to be vital in helping people develop close ties with one another. These close personal ties, in turn, have a positive impact on health."

In order to examine the relationship between religious service attendance and the size and quality of individuals' social networks, researcher Don Bradley analyzed data from a 1986 National Institute on Aging survey entitled "Americans' Changing Lives." This national data set contains responses to a range of sociological, psychological, mental health, and medical questions pertaining to middle- and older-age AmericansÌ daily lives. The three measures of social resources included: 1) the number of friends or relatives one could call on for advice or help if needed, 2) how many times in a week one talks on the telephone with friends, neighbors, or relatives, and 3) the perceived quality of one's relationships.

The study also examined a number of other socio-demographic variables to ensure that it was indeed religious attendance that was responsible for the social contact benefit. Such variables included gender, educational status, marital status, employment status, level of income, household size, and region of residence. Neuroticism (i.e., being excessively nervous, worrisome, tense, or high strung) and extroversion (i.e., being exceptionally outgoing) were also included as controls.

The study found "a strong positive association" between the frequency of religious service attendance and the size of an individual's social support network. In other words, the more frequently one attended church, the more friends or relatives that person could call on for advice or help, if needed. Most importantly, frequent church attenders had social support networks almost three times as large as did non-attenders. This difference in size of support networks between frequent church attenders and non-attenders was only slightly reduced when the control variables were factored into the analyses.

Frequency of church attendance was also positively associated with the frequency of telephone and in-person social contacts. That is to say, the more frequently one attended church, the more often one had contacts with friends, neighbors, or relatives either via the telephone or face-to-face. Another interesting finding was that individuals who attended church more frequently tended to evaluate their supportive relationships "more positively" than less frequent church attenders. Even after factors such as extroversion and neuroticism were factored into the analysis, frequent attenders still scored higher than non-attenders on the "perceived quality of relationships" index. In other words, the higher quality of relationships found among churchgoers was neither due to a higher percentage of extroverts in the church nor to having fewer neurotic church members.

The study's author concluded that "these findings are important because social resources have a positive impact on health." Furthermore, religious participation may promote health by "enhancing opportunities for the development of especially cohesive social relationships."

Reference: Bradley DE. (1995). Religious involvement and social resources: Evidence from the data set "Americans' Changing Lives." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34(2):259-267.