Religion, Aging, and Mexican American Health

描述(申请人提供)：越来越多的研究表明，宗教对晚年的健康和幸福产生有益的影响。此外，这本文献还表明，宗教的有益作用可能在少数族裔群体中尤为明显。然而，几乎所有这些工作都是在年长的非裔美国人身上进行的。人们对老年墨西哥裔美国人的宗教与健康之间的关系知之甚少。这种疏忽的部分原因是，没有人开发出一套专门针对墨西哥裔美国老年人使用的全面的宗教指标。这项研究的目的是解决文献中的这一差距。具体而言，本研究的目的如下：1.进行一系列的定性研究(如深度访谈和认知访谈)，以确定墨西哥裔美国老年人所生活的宗教的内容领域；2.利用这些定性方法获得的数据编制关于宗教的封闭式调查项目；3.对墨西哥裔美国老年人进行具有全国代表性的调查，以定量评估新设计的宗教测量的因素结构和心理测量学特性；4.将量化数据与首席调查员已经进行的一项可比的全国调查合并，以评估老年白人和老年非裔美国人的宗教与健康之间的关系；以及5.比较和比较老年白人、老年黑人和老年墨西哥裔美国人在宗教信仰方面的种族差异以及宗教与健康关系的种族差异。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A growing number of studies indicate that religion exerts a beneficial effect on health and well-being in late life. Moreover, this literature reveals that the salubrious effects of religion may be especially evident in racial minority groups. However, virtually all of this work has been conducted with older African Americans. Much less is known about the relationship between religion and health among older Mexican Americans. Part of the reason for this oversight arises from the fact that no one has developed a comprehensive set of religion indicators that are designed specifically for use with older Mexican Americans. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature. In particular, the proposed research has the following objectives: 1.To conduct a series of qualitative studies (e.g., in-depth interviews and cognitive interviews) in order to identify the content domain of religion as it is lived by older Mexican Americans; 2. To use the data obtained from these qualitative methods to craft closed-ended survey items on religion; 3. To conduct a nationally-representative survey of older Mexican Americans in order to quantitatively evaluate the factor structure and psychometric properties of the newly devised religion measures; 4. To merge the quantitative data with a comparable nationwide survey that has already been conducted by the Principal Investigator to assess the relationship between religion and health in older Whites and older African Americans; and 5. To compare and contrast race differences in religiousness as well as race differences in the relationship between religion and health among older Whites, older Blacks, and older Mexican Americans.