RELIGION, AGING, AND HEALTH

描述（由申请人提供）：本竞争继续申请的目的是寻求额外的资金，继续对老龄问题国家研究所（NIA）支持的项目：“宗教，老龄化和健康”（RO 1 AG 14749）的工作。这项研究的前四年用于开发一套全面的调查项目，以衡量晚年的宗教信仰。这项研究的高潮是在2001年完成的一项全国性的老年白人和老年非裔美国人调查（第一波）。在全国范围内的调查中，共有1,500名老年人成功接受了采访。对全国数据的分析表明，新设计的宗教项目具有良好的心理测量特性，这些措施以理论上有意义的方式与健康和心理福祉相关。要求提供资金，以便对参加基线调查（第一波）的所有对象再进行三波访谈（第2 - 4波）。这些额外的数据波将用于实现以下特定目标：1.）探讨性别、宗教与健康之间的关系; 2.）研究压力生活事件，宗教和健康之间的接口;和3。继续研究老年白人和老年黑人在宗教和健康方面的种族差异。 一个广泛的国家的最先进的数据分析程序将用于经验评估这些问题。这些程序包括个人增长曲线模型和潜在变量结构方程模型。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this competing continuation application is to seek additional funds to continue work on the National Institute on Aging (NIA)-supported project: "Religion, Aging, and Health" (RO 1 AG14749). The first four years of this study were spent developing a comprehensive set of survey items to measure religion in late life. This research culminated in a nationwide survey of older whites and older African Americans (Wave 1) that was completed in 2001. A total of 1,500 older adults were interviewed successfully for the nationwide survey. Analysis of the nationwide data suggests that the newly devised religion items have sound psychometric properties, and that these measures are related to health and psychological well being in theoretically meaningful ways. Funds are requested to conduct three more waves of interviews (Waves 2 - 4) with all subjects who participated in the baseline survey (Wave 1). These additional waves of data will be used to address the following specific aims: 1.) To explore the relationships among gender, religion, and health; 2.) To examine the interface between stressful life events, religion, and health; and 3.) To continue research on race differences in religion and health among older whites and older blacks. A wide range of state-of-the-art data analytic procedures will be used to empirically evaluate these issues. Included among these procedures are individual growth curve models and latent variable structural equation models.