Positive Effects of Religion and Social Ties on the Health of Former NFL Athletes.

This study explores the relationship between religious service attendance, social ties, and health among former NFL players, a population with relatively high levels of religious attendance who endure physically demanding occupations. Research shows that frequent religious service attenders tend to have better health, partly because of social connections formed through religious involvement. We analyzed a sample of 1029 former NFL players. Consistent with previous research, bivariate and multivariate OLS regression models show that frequent religious attenders have statistically significantly better self-rated health. However, this relationship is moderated by social ties. Respondents who scored lower on the social ties index exhibited a stronger significant relationship between frequent religious attendance and health; those scoring higher on the social ties index exhibited no relationship between frequent attendance and health. Future research should examine how benefits of religious attendance vary depending upon strength of social relationships.

The Price of Playing Through Pain: The Link Between Physical and Behavioral Health in Former NFL Athletes.

Over the past decade, media outlets have drawn attention to some of the health consequences of playing in the National Football League (NFL), including how wear-and-tear and injuries accumulated during athletes' playing years can affect their physical, emotional, and behavioral health after retirement from professional sports. Through a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional telephone survey of former NFL athletes, this study estimated logistic regression models to assess the relationship between several forms of physical pain and anger attacks, controlling for binge drinking, signs of depression, functional limitations, NFL career duration, religious service attendance, and demographic characteristics (age, marital status, race, education, income, and wealth). The analytic sample included 1030 former NFL players. Neck pain, lower back pain, headaches/migraines, and the number of sites of pain were positively and significantly related to anger attacks. There was no significant association between joint pain and anger attacks. NFL career duration was negatively associated with anger attacks, as was religious service attendance. Future research should focus on factors that protect against affective aggression in former professional athletes and how protective factors can be adapted to the broader population.