Self-rated health predicts mortality -- but it depends on your age.

While self-rated health (SRH) has long been known to predict mortality in adult populations, the age of respondents plays an interesting and complex role in both explaining and modifying the association. The objective of this study is to test for differences by age in the association of SRH with all-cause mortality. Because much of the research has been conducted with older samples, a wider age range of adults may show that some age groups have more predictive SRH than others.

Spirituality As A Determinant Of Health: Emerging Policies, Practices, And Systems.

Reimagining public health's future should include explicitly considering spirituality as a social determinant of health that is linked to human goods and is deeply valued by people and their communities. Spirituality includes a sense of ultimate meaning, purpose, transcendence, and connectedness. With that end in mind, we assessed how recommendations recently issued by an expert panel for integrating spiritual factors into public health and medicine are being adopted in current practice in the United States.

Narratives and counter-narratives in religious responses to COVID-19: A computational text analysis.

Religious responses to COVID-19 as portrayed in a major news source raise the issue of conflict or cooperation between religious bodies and public health authorities. We compared articles in the New York Times relating to religion and COVID-19 with the COVID-19 statements posted on 63 faith-based organizations' web sites, and with the guidance documents published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) specifically for religious bodies. We used computational text analysis to identify and compare sentiments and topics in the three bodies of text.

The prevalence, grouping, and distribution of stressors and their association with anxiety among hospitalized patients.

Anxiety is prevalent among hospital inpatients and it has harmful effects on patient well-being and clinical outcomes. We aimed to characterize the sources of hospital distress and their relationship to anxiety. We conducted a cross-sectional study of inpatients (n = 271) throughout two Southeastern U.

Is Secularization an Age-Related Process?

Secularization has been studied for decades by sociologists of religion. Long-running surveys in the United States and Europe show steady generational decline in religious affiliation and participation, and yet this trend has largely been ignored by gerontologists and life course researchers. We examined data from the Health and Retirement Study, hypothesizing between-cohort declines in religious participation.

Promoting advance care planning in African American faith communities: literature review and assessment of church-based programs.

Advance care planning is under-used among Black Americans, often because of experiences of racism in the health care system, resulting in a lower quality of care at the end of life. African American faith communities are trusted institutions where such sensitive conversations may take place safely. Our search of the literature identified five articles describing faith-based advance care planning education initiatives for Black Americans that have been implemented in local communities.

What Do We Rate When We Rate Our Health? Decomposing Age-related Contributions to Self-rated Health.

Self-ratings of health (SRH) indicate current health-related quality of life and independently predict mortality. Studies show the SRH of older adults appears less influenced by physical health than the SRH of younger adults. But if physical health accounts less for the SRH of older adults, what factors take its place? To understand the relative contributions of social, emotional, and physical states to SRH by age, we analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey 2006 to 2011 ( N = 153,341).

Religion, a social determinant of mortality? A 10-year follow-up of the Health and Retirement Study.

The social determinants of health framework has brought a recognition of the primary importance of social forces in determining population health. Research using this framework to understand the health and mortality impact of social, economic, and political conditions, however, has rarely included religious institutions and ties. We investigate a well-measured set of social and economic determinants along with several measures of religious participation as predictors of adult mortality.

The benefits of being a senior mentor: Cultivating resilience through the mentorship of health professions students.

Senior Mentor Programs (SMPs) pair community-dwelling older adults with health professions students to facilitate knowledge, improve communication skills, and promote positive attitudes regarding the aging process. Although evidence exists that SMPs meet these goals, the programs' psychosocial impact on the senior mentors remains unexplored. The current study assessed 101 mostly female (64.

Transcending differences to study the transcendent: an exploratory study of researchers' and chaplains' reflections on interdisciplinary spiritual care research collaboration.

Background: Despite recognition of the centrality of professional board-certified chaplains (BCC) in palliative care, the discipline has little research to guide its practices. To help address this limitation, HealthCare Chaplaincy Network funded six proposals in which BCCs worked collaboratively with established researchers. Recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in the development of a new field, this paper reports on an exploratory study of project members' reflections over time on the benefits and challenges of conducting inter-disciplinary spiritual care research.

Pathways from religion to advance care planning: beliefs about control over length of life and end-of-life values.

Purpose Of The Study: To evaluate the extent to which religious affiliation and self-identified religious importance affect advance care planning (ACP) via beliefs about control over life length and end-of-life values.

Design And Methods: Three hundred and five adults aged 55 and older from diverse racial and socioeconomic groups seeking outpatient care in New Jersey were surveyed. Measures included discussion of end-of-life preferences; living will (LW) completion; durable power of attorney for healthcare (DPAHC) appointment; religious affiliation; importance of religion; and beliefs about who/what controls life length, end-of-life values, health status, and sociodemographics.

Mending broken hearts: marriage and survival following cardiac surgery.

Marriage has long been linked to lower risk for adult mortality in population and clinical studies. In a regional sample of patients (n = 569) undergoing cardiac surgery, we compared 5-year hazards of mortality for married persons with those of widowed, separated or divorced, and never married persons using data from medical records and psychosocial interviews. After adjusting for demographics and pre- and postsurgical health, unmarried persons had 1.

Religion and the quality of life in the last year of life.

Objectives: Religious involvement in old age appears to remain quite stable until the very end of life, reflecting patterns established earlier in life. Are there differences in quality of life (QOL) for those who are religiously involved in that last year compared with those who are not?

Methods: We studied 499 elderly persons participating in ongoing annual interviews who died in the 12 months following an interview. We examined public and subjective religious involvement and indicators of health-related and psychosocial QOL, including health status and functional ability, family and friendship networks, depression, and well-being.

Looking Inside the Black Box of "Attendance at Services": New Measures for Exploring an Old Dimension in Religion and Health Research.

Research in religion and health has spurred new interest in measuring religiousness. Measurement efforts have focused on subjective facets of religiousness such as spirituality and beliefs, and less attention has been paid to congregate aspects, beyond the single item measuring attendance at services. We evaluate some new measures for religious experiences occurring during congregational worship services.

Psychological factors influencing self-assessments of health: toward an understanding of the mechanisms underlying how people rate their own health.

Background: Research in the past 20 years has shown that self-assessed health (SAH) is a consistent and reliable predictor of health outcomes. However, it is still unclear what factors are responsible for the association of SAH with mortality and other objective health indicators.

Purpose: This study examined the impact of trait positive affect, trait negative affect, and functional limitations (FL) on SAH cross-sectionally and longitudinally.

Psychosocial factors in heart surgery: presurgical vulnerability and postsurgical recovery.

Objective: Distress and low perceived social support were examined as indicators of psychosocial vulnerability in patients about to undergo heart surgery.

Design: A total of 550 study patients underwent heart surgeries, including bypass grafting and valve procedures. Psychosocial interviews were conducted about five days before surgery, and biomedical data were obtained from hospital records.

Psychological distress and fatigue predicted recurrence and survival in primary breast cancer patients.

This study examined whether psychological distress in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients was associated with their survival. We analyzed data from 1,588 breast cancer patients who filled in the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) 2 months after their primary operation. The median follow-up time was 12.

Course of depressive symptoms in patients undergoing heart surgery: confirmatory analysis of the factor pattern and latent mean structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensionality, stability, and course of depressive symptoms over the 12-month period beginning approximately 1 week before heart surgery.

Methods: The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was administered to 570 patients before heart surgery and 1, 3.5, 6.

Quality of life following cardiac surgery: impact of the severity and course of depressive symptoms.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the severity and course of depressive symptoms on change in quality of life (QOL) 6 months after cardiac surgery.

Methods: Ninety patients were interviewed before heart surgery and 2 and 6 months after surgery. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory, and QOL was assessed using physical and psychosocial functioning indices derived from the Medical Outcomes Study instrument.