Religious Attendance and Psychological Well-Being in Middle-Aged and Older Mexican Americans

The relationship between religious attendance and psychological well-being is explored ir a sample of middle-aged and older Mexican American men and women. Religious attendance has significant zero-order effects on life satisfaction in older men and in middle-aged and older women. The associations remain significant in women, despite controlling for age, marital status, social class, and either of two indicators of health status. Previous work in gerontology and epidemiology suggests that religious attendance, especially among older adults, may represent a proxy for health, but our findings provide only mixed confirmation of this, and only in older men. In women, religious attendance does appear to have a substantive independent effect on well-being