Religion and health in African Americans: the role of religious coping.

Abstract

To test a model of the religion-health connection to determine whether religious coping plays a mediating role in health behaviors in a national sample of African Americans. Participants completed a telephone survey (N = 2370) assessing religious involvement, religious coping, health behaviors, and demographics. Religious beliefs were associated with greater vegetable consumption, which may be due to the role of positive and negative religious coping. Negative religious coping played a role in the relationship between religious beliefs and alcohol consumption. There was no evidence of mediation for fruit consumption, alcohol use in the past 30 days, or smoking. Findings have implications for theory and health promotion activities for African Americans.