Religion, spirituality, and health: New considerations for epidemiology

Abstract

Religion and spirituality are important social determinants that drive public health practice. The field of epidemiology has played a vital role in answering long-standing questions about whether religion is causally associated with health and mortality. As epidemiologists spark new conversations (e.g., see Kawachi (Am J Epidemiol.(https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwz204)) and Chen and VanderWeele (Am J Epidemiol. 2018;187(11):2355-2364)) about methods (e.g., outcomes-wide analysis) used to establish causal inference between religion and health, epidemiologists need to engage with other aspects of the issue, such as emerging trends and historical predictors. Epidemiologists will need to address 2 key aspects. The first is changing patterns in religious and spiritual identification. Specifically, how do traditional mechanisms (e.g., social support) hold up as explanations for religion-health associations now that more people identify as spiritual but not religious and more people are not attending religious services in physical buildings? The second is incorporation of place into causal inference designs. Specifically, how do we establish causal inference for associations between area-level constructs of the religious environment (e.g., denomination-specific church membership/adherence rates) and individual- and population-level health outcomes?