Stability and shifts in the combined positive and negative mental health of clergy: A longitudinal latent class and latent transition analysis study of united methodist pastors before and after the onset of COVID-19.

COVID-19 and its associated restrictions presented unprecedented challenges for those in the helping professions. In this study, we seek to understand how the mental health of those who belong to one specific helping profession - clergy - changed in the context of COVID-19. Using longitudinal data of a sample of United Methodist pastors from the North Carolina Clergy Health Initiative, we conduct both cross-sectional and person-centered analyses to investigate how the overall mental health of this occupational group changed, as well as how different subgroups of clergy fared within the context of the pandemic, depending on their well-being prior to the onset of COVID-19. We found that the mental health of pastors suffered within the context of the pandemic, but that individual changes in mental health differed based on what the combined positive and negative mental health patterns of clergy were prior to the pandemic, for which we used latent class analysis to identify as Flourishing, Distressed, Languishing, or Burdened but Fulfilled. Of these subgroups, having Flourishing pre-pandemic status was protective of mental health following the onset of COVID-19, whereas the other three subgroups' mental health statuses worsened. This study is the one of the first longitudinal studies of helping professionals which has tracked changes in mental health before and after the onset of COVID-19. Our findings demonstrate the utility of considering positive and negative mental health indicators together, and they point to certain groups that can be targeted with well-being resources during future periods of acute or abnormal stress.

Religious Pathways from Adolescence to Adulthood.

Prior research suggests the significance of religion for development and wellbeing in adolescence and beyond. Further, new developments and applications of statistical methods have led to ways of better accounting for the multidimensional nature of religiosity (e.g. latent class analysis), as well as the dynamic aspects of religiosity (e.g. latent growth curve models). Yet, rarely if ever are both features of religiosity incorporated and examined together. Therefore, we propose and conduct a latent class analysis using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to identify seven distinct pathways of religiosity that involve independently changing levels of religious affiliation, religious service attendance, personal importance of religion, and prayer from adolescence to adulthood. We also show how individuals' religious pathways are related to gender, race, parents' education, their own education, and family formation experiences in the transition to adulthood. Our findings inform the study of how multiple dimensions of religiosity take shape across adolescence and the transition to adulthood, and suggest a new way for measuring the dynamics of religiosity in studies of the impact of religion across the life course.