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).

Processes Linking Religious Involvement and Telomere Length.

Although numerous studies suggest that religious involvement is associated with better health and longer life expectancies, it is unclear whether these general patterns extend to cellular aging. The mechanisms linking indicators of religious involvement with indicators of cellular aging are also undefined. We employed longitudinal data from the 2004 and 2008 Health and Retirement Study, a national probability sample of Americans aged 50 and older, to test whether average telomere length varied according to level of religious attendance.

Gender composition of the occupation, sexual orientation, and mental health in young adulthood.

The gender composition of the occupation has important implications for work conditions, rewards, and experiences, but little is known about whether it impacts workers' mental health. The present study seeks to answer this question by focusing on depressive symptoms and drug dependence symptoms as mental health outcomes and young adulthood as the life course context. The study further examines whether the association varies by sexual orientation, considering that occupational gender composition affects levels of stress exposure and social support availability in different ways for heterosexuals and sexual minorities.

Discrimination and sleep quality among older US adults: the mediating role of psychological distress.

Objective: To examine the association between everyday discrimination and sleep quality and identify mediating pathways between discrimination and sleep quality.

Design: Longitudinal.

Setting: Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Sexual orientation, internal migration, and mental health during the transition to adulthood.

Previous research has suggested that sexual minorities may have higher rates of migration than heterosexuals, indicating their effort to escape stigma in the currently residing areas. However, direct evidence for the migration pattern has been lacking, and mental health implications of such coping effort have been unclear. This study seeks to fill these gaps in the literature by analyzing the Add Health data, which include longitudinal measures of residential locations, sexual orientation, and mental health.