 Religion and preventative health care utilization among the elderlyMaureen Reindl Benjamins and Carolyn Brown Social Science & Medicine, 2004, vol. 58, issue 1, 109-118 Abstract: Evidence supporting a relationship between religion and physical health has increased substantially in the recent past. One possible explanation for this relationship that has not received much attention in the literature is that health care utilization may differ by religious involvement or religious denomination. A nationally representative sample of older adults was used to estimate the effects of religious salience and denomination on six different types of preventative health care (i.e. flu shots, cholesterol screening, breast self-exams, mammograms, pap smears, and prostrate screening). Findings show that both men and women who report high levels of religiosity are more likely to use preventative services. Denominational differences show that affiliated individuals, especially those who are Jewish, are significantly more likely to use each type of preventative care than non-affiliated individuals. The results of this study open the door to further exploration of this potentially important, but relatively neglected, link between religion and health. Keywords: Religion; Health; care; use; Elderly (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:1:p:109-118 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
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