TY - JOUR
T1 - Health and religiosity among Israeli Jews
AU - Shmueli, Amir
PY - 2007/2
Y1 - 2007/2
N2 - Background: The objective of this paper is to explore the connection between self-reported health and religiosity among Israeli Jews, using several self-reported health measures. Methods: Data were collected by two health surveys covering 1999 individuals in 1993 and 2505 individuals in 2000, representing the population of Jewish Israelis aged 45-75 years residing in urban communities in those years. Self-reported health was measured by (i) reported chronic conditions, (ii) the SF-36 instrument, and (iii) a visual analogue scale of health-related quality of life. Religiosity was measured by a self-reported five-category scale. Results: Controlling for a large array of socio-demographic characteristics, while no religiosity gradient was found in reported chronic morbidity, religious persons generally report worse health than secular persons on the other measures. The gap is larger in the SF-36's role-performance scales, and among women and Israelis from Asian-African origin. Discussion: The mixed results are consistent with the ambiguity of the religiosity effect on health reported in recent surveys. However, trying to reconcile between longer life expectancy of religious persons found in earlier Israeli and other research and poorer reported health found above, the paper emphasizes the possible differences in the perception of 'normal' life and roles, and argues that the SF-36 health measures might suffer from a religiosity-related reporting heterogeneity, distorting their association with mortality in the population.
AB - Background: The objective of this paper is to explore the connection between self-reported health and religiosity among Israeli Jews, using several self-reported health measures. Methods: Data were collected by two health surveys covering 1999 individuals in 1993 and 2505 individuals in 2000, representing the population of Jewish Israelis aged 45-75 years residing in urban communities in those years. Self-reported health was measured by (i) reported chronic conditions, (ii) the SF-36 instrument, and (iii) a visual analogue scale of health-related quality of life. Religiosity was measured by a self-reported five-category scale. Results: Controlling for a large array of socio-demographic characteristics, while no religiosity gradient was found in reported chronic morbidity, religious persons generally report worse health than secular persons on the other measures. The gap is larger in the SF-36's role-performance scales, and among women and Israelis from Asian-African origin. Discussion: The mixed results are consistent with the ambiguity of the religiosity effect on health reported in recent surveys. However, trying to reconcile between longer life expectancy of religious persons found in earlier Israeli and other research and poorer reported health found above, the paper emphasizes the possible differences in the perception of 'normal' life and roles, and argues that the SF-36 health measures might suffer from a religiosity-related reporting heterogeneity, distorting their association with mortality in the population.
KW - Israel
KW - Judaism
KW - Religiosity
KW - Self-reported health
KW - SF-36
KW - VAS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846846394&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/eurpub/ckl105
DO - 10.1093/eurpub/ckl105
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.article???
C2 - 16877450
AN - SCOPUS:33846846394
SN - 1101-1262
VL - 17
SP - 104
EP - 111
JO - European Journal of Public Health
JF - European Journal of Public Health
IS - 1
ER -