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June 9, 2006 -- It really may be better to give than to receive, at least when it comes to emotional support among older churchgoers, shows a new longevity study.
The study tracks death risk among black and white senior citizens (average age: 74) who attend church.
Published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, the study shows that participants who reported giving emotional support to others in their church had a lower risk for death than those who received such emotional support.
Church attendance has previously been linked to greater longevity, notes Neal Krause, PhD, a professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan?s School of Public Health.
Krause wanted to learn more about what aspects of church attendance might influence death risk. So he checked survey results from 976 older churchgoers.
About six in 10 participants were women. Slightly more than half -- 54% -- were black.
The survey asked about emotional support given and received from other churchgoers, chronic financial strain, frequency of church attendance, private religious practices (praying and reading the Bible), and self-rated health.
The results show lower risk of death for those who give emotional support to fellow churchgoers -- even after taking chronic financial strain into consideration. Giving support to other churchgoers might help buffer the effects of financial stressstress in older adults, Krause notes.
?Although the results provided here may be thought provoking, a great deal of work remains to be done,? Krause writes. For instance, he notes that ?researchers need to identify the factors that influence the provision of support in the church in the first place.?
In other words, he?d like to learn why some are more likely than others to provide emotional support to fellow churchgoers, and how those traits might affect the results.
SOURCES: Krause, N. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, May 2006; vol 61B: pp S140-S146. News release, The Gerontological Society of America.