Sin in the Digital Flesh? Religiosity and the Sexting Behavior of Women and Men in the United States.

Scholars have noted a rise in sexting behavior in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the association between religion and sexual behavior has been widely studied, researchers have yet to consider whether sexting behavior might vary according to levels of religiosity. Building on prior research, this study uses national survey data to formally test whether several dimensions of religiosity (religious attendance, divine control, and religious/spiritual struggles) are associated with the sexting behavior of women (n = 619, Mage = 40.28, SD = 11.50) and men (n = 548, Mage = 40.04, SD = 11.51). Results suggest that the odds of sexting are lower among women who report higher levels of in-person religious attendance (not virtual attendance) and greater perceptions of divine control. Among women and men, the odds of sexting are higher among those who report more religious/spiritual struggles. This study is among the first to show how various dimensions of religiosity might influence sexting behavior in different ways for women and men during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important for future research to replicate our findings and to consider whether other dimensions of religiosity might also contribute to the likelihood of sexting in an increasingly digital world.

Do Religious Struggles Mediate the Association Between Neighborhood Disorder and Health in the United States?

Over the past two decades, numerous studies have linked the subjective experience of neighborhood disorder (perceptions of crime, dilapidation and ambient strains) with poorer health. We test whether religious struggles (religious doubts and feeling abandoned or punished by God) mediate this association. Our counterfactual mediation analyses of data from the 2021 Crime, Health, and Politics Survey (CHAPS) (n = 1741) revealed consistent indirect effects of neighborhood disorder through religious struggles for anger, psychological distress, sleep disturbance, poorer self-rated health, and shorter subjective life expectancy. This study contributes to previous work by integrating the study of neighborhood context and religion.

An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis of the Stanford-Templeton Convenings on Islam and Suicide.

For over 70 years, studies have reported lower rates of completed suicide in Muslim-majority countries and individuals who identify as Muslim. To this point, the mechanisms underlying the relationship between Islam and lower risk of suicide remain understudied. In an effort to advance our understanding, we convened a bilingual international interdisciplinary panel of experts for a discussion of the current state and future directions of the field. In this paper, we present an exploratory qualitative analysis of the core themes that emerged from the group interviews. We also derive a general theoretical model of the association between Islam and suicide risk.

Crisis of Faith and Sleep Quality in the United States: A Literal Dark Night of the Soul?

A crisis of faith is an intrapersonal struggle with ultimate meaning that occurs when one's supramundane reality is called in question. We propose a theoretical model which suggests that a crisis of faith will contribute to poorer sleep quality by undermining a general sense of meaning and purpose in life, especially among women. We use national survey data from the Wave 5 of the Baylor Religion Survey United States (N = 1395). Ordinary least squares regression models with robust standard errors are utilized. Sobel-Goodman mediation techniques are used to test the proposed mediating pathway. Our results suggest that a crisis of faith is associated with lower sleep quality, and that this pathway is partially mediated by a lower sense of meaning and purpose in life. Finally, we found that the relationship between a crisis of faith and lower sleep quality was weaker for women. We discuss the implications of our results and suggest how future research may explore the relevance of a crisis of faith for well-being as well as other aspects of the human condition.

Religion and Pandemic Weight Gain: A Refuge from the Storm?

The COVID-19 pandemic was an inherently stressful global crisis that was associated with weight gain for over 40% of the American public. Building on previous research, we draw on recently collected national survey data from the United States to examine the effects of religious attendance (both in-person and virtual), the sense of divine control, and religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles on pandemic weight gain. A series of logistic regression models were conducted. Our findings suggest that divine control and monthly in-person religious attendance were associated with a lower risk of pandemic weight gain, while R/S struggles were associated with a higher risk of weight gain. Our results reveal the complex role that religiosity can play with respect to pandemic weight gain.

Perceptions of neighborhood dangerousness and changes in sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic: Assessing the mediating role of changes in health behaviors.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that neighborhood context contributes to variations in morbidity and mortality. This body of work includes a burgeoning literature that links adverse neighborhood characteristics (e.g., neighborhood poverty and perceptions of disorder and dangerousness) with poorer sleep outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many neighborhoods exhibited socioeconomic downturns and escalations in crime and violence. The question is the extent to which these changes in neighborhood conditions have impacted the sleep quality of residents. In this paper, we use original survey data from the 2021 Crime, Health, and Politics Survey (CHAPS), a national probability sample of adults living in the U.S., to formally test whether changes in perceptions of neighborhood dangerousness during the pandemic are associated with sleep quality during the same period. Regression analyses show that while reports of a neighborhood becoming safer during the pandemic are associated with better sleep quality, reports of a neighborhood becoming more dangerous are associated with worse sleep quality. Mediation analyses also indicate that the association between increased neighborhood dangerousness and poorer sleep quality is partially explained by a concurrent deterioration in diet quality, but not increases in alcohol or cigarette consumption. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for research and policy on neighborhood context and sleep.

(Un)holy Smokes? Religion and Traditional and E-Cigarette Use in the United States.

This study employed national cross-sectional survey data from the 2021 Crime, Health, and Politics Survey (n = 1578 to 1735) to model traditional cigarette and e-cigarette use as a function of religious affiliation, general religiosity, biblical literalism, religious struggles, and the sense of divine control. Although the odds of abstaining from cigarettes and e-cigarettes were comparable for conservative Protestants and non-affiliates, conservative Protestants were more likely to cut down on cigarettes and e-cigarettes during the pandemic. Religiosity increased the odds of abstaining from cigarettes (not e-cigarettes) and reduced pandemic consumption of cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Biblical literalism was unrelated to abstaining from cigarettes and pandemic changes in cigarette use; however, biblical literalists were more likely to cut e-cigarette use during the pandemic. While the sense of divine control was unrelated to abstaining from cigarettes and e-cigarettes, these beliefs increased the odds of cessation from traditional and e-cigarette use. Finally, our religious struggles index was unrelated to smoking behavior. Our study is among the first to report any association between religion and lower e-cigarette use.

Postpartum Depressive Symptoms during the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Examination of Population Birth Data from Central New Jersey.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the mental health of women in the perinatal period prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We use provisional vital statistics data for births occurring in the central region of New Jersey. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale is employed to assess depressive symptoms. Our focal analysis uses linear regression models to test whether giving birth during the pandemic is associated with elevated depressive symptoms. All analyses are performed using time-matched (September 2019-April 2020; n = 18,531) and month-matched (January 2019-April 2019 and January 2020- April 2020; n = 18,346) samples. RESULTS: Women who gave birth in March and not in April reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than those who gave birth prior to the pandemic in our time-matched (b = 0.09) and month-matched (b = 0.09) samples. The magnitude of this association is approximately one-third the magnitude of the association between preterm birth and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that researchers and practitioners should pay special attention to signs of postpartum depression and women's adaptive coping responses in the early stages of pandemics.

Sad Eyes, Crooked Crosses: Religious Struggles, Psychological Distress and the Mediating Role of Psychosocial Resources.

In this paper, we employed data from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (n = 444) to formally test whether the association between religious struggles and psychological distress is mediated by psychosocial resources. We found that religious struggles were associated with lower levels of social support, self-esteem, the sense of control, and self-control. We also observed that religious struggles were associated with higher levels of non-specific emotional distress, depression, and anxiety, but not somatization. Our mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of religious struggles on emotional distress (not somatization) through social support, self-esteem, and the sense of control, but not self-control.

Gun ownership and sleep disturbance.

Although there is no empirical evidence linking gun ownership with better sleep, speculation is widespread in gun culture. We assess the direct association between gun ownership and sleep disturbance and whether gun ownership moderates the association between neighborhood fear and sleep disturbance. We use four waves of cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey (2010-2018) and logistic regression to model sleep disturbance as a function of gun ownership and test the statistical interaction of gun ownership and neighborhood fear. Our analyses demonstrate that gun ownership is unrelated to sleep disturbance across sleep specifications. None of the statistical interactions between gun ownership and neighborhood fear reached statistical significance. Although being afraid to walk alone at night in one's neighborhood is associated with restless sleep, owning a gun is no consolation. In ancillary analyses, we observed that gun ownership is unrelated to sleep disturbance across survey years and a range of subpopulations. In the first empirical study of gun ownership and sleep, we find consistent evidence to suggest that people who own guns do not report better sleep in general or in the context of living in a dangerous neighborhood. Our analyses are important because they contribute to our understanding of the epidemiology of sleep. They also challenge theoretical perspectives and cultural narratives about how having a gun in the home helps individuals and their families to feel safe, secure, and protected. Additional research is needed to replicate our findings using longitudinal data and more reliable measures of sleep disturbance.

The multiplicative impacts of working hours and fine particulate matter concentration on life expectancy: A longitudinal analysis of US States.

This study contributes to interdisciplinary research on the social and environmental determinants of population health, with a focus on the interaction between working hours and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration. The authors estimate longitudinal models of the relationship between US state-level average life expectancy and both average working hours and PM2.5 concentration for the 2005-2014 period. Results obtained from two-way fixed effects models indicate that average life expectancy is negatively associated with both average working hours and fine particulate matter concentration. Findings also indicate clear moderating relationships: the negative association between life expectancy and working hours is amplified as PM2.5 concentration increases, and the negative relationship between life expectancy and fine particulate matter concentration is amplified when average working hours increase. The results of this study underscore the need for additional research on the multiplicative impacts of socioeconomic factors and environmental factors in the modeling of population health.

Examining the Overlap Between Moral Injury and PTSD in US Veterans and Active Duty Military.

Moral injury (MI) is a syndrome thought to be separate from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet having some overlap. To determine the overlap, we examined the relationship between MI and the four DSM-5 PTSD symptom clusters (B, C, D, E) in US veterans and active duty military (ADM). The 45-item Moral Injury Symptom Scale (MISS-M) was administered to 591 veterans and ADM who had served in a combat theater and had PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms were measured with the PTSD Symptom Checklist-5, which assesses the four PTSD symptom clusters. Total MISS-M scores were more strongly associated with PTSD symptom cluster D (negative cognitions and emotions) in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Findings for a 10-item version of the MISS-M (MISS-M-SF) closely followed those of the MISS-M. Although the overlap between MI and PTSD occurs to some extent across all PTSD symptoms clusters, the largest overlap tends to be with the negative cognitions and emotions cluster.

The Blood of Christ Compels Them: State Religiosity and State Population Mobility During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.

This paper examines the association between state religiosity and population mobility during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We use first-party geo-behavioral data collected through mobile phone operating systems, global positioning systems, and Wi-Fi signals to assess changes in the average median distance traveled by approximately 15,000,000 devices over eight weeks (February 24-April 13) in the contiguous United States. Robust regression results show that more religious states tend to exhibit higher average mobility scores and slower average declines in mobility. Findings also suggest that state stay-at-home orders have a weaker impact on mobility in more religious states.

Employment insecurity and sleep disturbance: Evidence from 31 European countries.

For nearly half a century, jobs have become increasingly characterized by employment insecurity. We examined the implications for sleep disturbance with cross-sectional data from the European Working Conditions Survey (2010). A group of 24,553 workers between the ages of 25 and 65 years in 31 European countries were asked to indicate whether they suffered from "insomnia or general sleep difficulties" in the past 12 months. We employed logistic regression to model the association between employment insecurity and sleep disturbance for all countries combined and each individual country. For all countries combined, employment insecurity increased the odds of reporting insomnia or general sleep difficulties in the past 12 months. Each unit increase in employment insecurity elevated the odds of sleep disturbance by approximately 47%. This finding was remarkably consistent across 27 of 31 European countries, including Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and UK. These results persisted with adjustments for age, gender, immigrant status, household size, partnership status, number of children, child care, elder care, education, earner status, precarious employment status, workplace sector, workplace tenure and workplace size. Employment insecurity was unrelated to sleep disturbance in four European countries: Malta, Poland, Portugal and Romania. Our research continues recent efforts to reveal the human costs associated with working in neoliberal postindustrial labour markets. Our analyses contribute to the external validity of previous research by exploring the impact of employment insecurity across European countries.

Does ethnic identity buffer or intensify the stress of discrimination among the foreign born and U.S. born? Evidence from the Miami-Dade Health Survey.

This study examines the extent to which ethnic identity is a protective factor and buffers the stress of discrimination among the foreign born compared to the U.S. born in Miami-Dade County. Data were drawn from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (N = 444), which is a countywide probability sample of adults in South Florida. Two interaction effects were observed: (a) a stronger ethnic identity was associated with less distress among the foreign born than the U.S. born; and (b) a stronger ethnic identity exacerbated the relationship between everyday discrimination and distress among the U.S. born. Ethnic identity, which involves ethnic pride, participation in cultural practices, and cultural commitment or sense of belonging, was associated with better psychological well-being among the foreign born than the U.S. born. Ethnic identity, however, was not a protective factor for the U.S. born, but rather it intensified the distressing effect of discrimination.

Religious Attendance and the Social Support Trajectories of Older Mexican Americans.

In this paper, we directly assessed the extent to which the association between religious attendance and the social support trajectories of older Mexican Americans is due to selection (spurious) processes related to personality, health status, and health behavior. We employed seven waves of data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (1993-2010) to examine the association between religious attendance and perceived social support trajectories (n = 2479). We used growth mixture modeling to estimate latent classes of social support trajectories and multivariate multinomial logistic regression models to predict membership in the social support trajectory classes. Growth mixture estimates revealed three classes of social support trajectories: high, moderate, and low. Multinomial logistic regression estimates showed that the odds of membership in the low support trajectory class (versus the high social support trajectory class) were lower for respondents who attended religious services yearly, monthly, weekly, and more than weekly than for respondents who never attend religious services. Religious attendance could not distinguish between membership in the moderate and high support trajectory classes. These results persisted with adjustments for age, gender, immigrant status, language proficiency, education, income, religious affiliation, marital status, living arrangements, contact with family/friends, secular group memberships, self-esteem, smoking, heavy drinking, depression, cognitive functioning, and physical mobility. We conclude that the association between religious attendance and the social support trajectories of older Mexican Americans is primarily driven by processes related to social integration, not selection.

Religious Attendance and Biological Risk: A National Longitudinal Study of Older Adults.

Although several studies suggest that religious involvement is associated with healthier biological functioning in later life, most of this work is cross-sectional. We extend previous research by employing a longitudinal design. Our analysis of Health and Retirement Study (2006/2010) data suggests that older adults who attended religious services weekly or more in 2006 tend to exhibit fewer high-risk biomarkers in 2010 and greater reductions in allostatic load over the 4-year study period than respondents who attended yearly or not at all. These patterns persisted with adjustments for baseline allostatic load and a range of background variables.

Dimensions of Religiosity and PTSD Symptom Clusters in US Veterans and Active Duty Military.

We examined multiple dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to the four DSM-5 PTSD symptom clusters among US Veterans and Active Duty Military (ADM), hypothesizing that religiosity would be most strongly inversely related to negative cognitions/emotions (Criterion D symptoms) and less strongly to neurobiologically based symptom clusters (B, C, and E). This cross-sectional multisite study involved 591 Veterans and ADM from across the southern USA. Inclusion criteria were having served in a combat theater and the presence of PTSD symptoms. Measures of religious beliefs/practices, social involvement, and PTSD symptoms were administered, and bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted in the overall sample, and in exploratory analyses, in the sample stratified by race (White, Black, and Hispanic). In the overall sample, multivariate analyses revealed that the only PTSD symptom cluster inversely related to religiosity was Criterion D, and only to organizational (b = - 0.08, P = 0.028) and cognitive/intrinsic religiosity (b = - 0.06, P = 0.049), relationships that were fully explained by social factors. Religious struggles, in contrast, were positively related to all four symptom clusters. Inverse relationships with Criterion D symptoms were particularly strong in Blacks, in whom inverse relationships were also present with Criterion E symptoms. In contrast, only positive relationships with PTSD symptom clusters were found in Hispanics, and no relationships (except for religious struggles) were present in Whites. As hypothesized, the inverse relationship between religious involvement and PTSD symptoms in Veterans and ADM was strongest (though modest) for Criterion D negative cognitions/emotions, especially in Blacks.

Religious Involvement and Marijuana Use for Medical and Recreational Purposes.

In this article, we use data from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to examine the association between religious involvement and marijuana use for medical and recreational purposes in U.S. adults (N = 41,517). We also consider whether the association between religious involvement and marijuana use varies according to personal health status. Our results show that adults who attend religious services more frequently and hold more salient religious beliefs tend to exhibit lower rates of medical and recreational marijuana use. We also find that these "protective effects" are less pronounced for adults in poor health. Although our findings confirm previous studies of recreational marijuana use, we are the first to examine the association between religious involvement and medical marijuana use. Our moderation analyses suggest that the morality and social control functions of religious involvement may be offset under the conditions of poor health.

Religious Attendance and Body Mass: An Examination of Variations by Race and Gender.

Studies of the association between religious attendance and body mass have yielded mixed results. In this paper, we consider intersectional variations by race and gender to advance our understanding of these inconsistencies. We use data from the 2006-2008 Health and Retirement Study to examine the association between religious attendance and three indicators of body mass: overall body mass index, waist circumference, and waist-to-height ratio (n = 11,457). For White women, attendance is either protective or unrelated to body mass. For Black women, attendance is consistently associated with increased body mass. We find that religious attendance is not associated with body mass among the men.