Research on Religion and Aging: An Annotated Bibliography

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This first systematic guide to the latest research about religion and aging focuses on the linkage between religion and health outcomes in people over 55, who will represent one-third of America's population by the year 2025. A short introduction points to the rapidly growing literature since 1980; the conclusion offers a brief synthesis of the varied basic and applied studies on the subject and suggests a useful model to consider applying. Nearly 300 entries with concise and comprehensive annotations are organized under four main subjects: religious beliefs, behaviors, and experience; relationships between religion and health; practical applications of research findings; and measuring religiosity and spirituality. Arranged under numerous additional sub-topics and with author and subject indexes, the guide is accessible and designed for varied use by students, teachers, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and professionals in the fields of sociology and social work, psychology and psychiatry, and medicine and health. Researchers, educators, and policymakers will find this book invaluable in identifying research and application studies and in evaluating their quality and methodology. Arranged under additional subtopics (by populations in many situations with varied problems, in terms of concerns relating to mental and physical health and with applications in different fields) and with author and subject indexes, the guide is accessible and designed for varied use by students, teachers, practitioners, and professionals in the fields of sociology and social work, psychology and psychiatry, and medicine and health.

Reviews

.,."an excellent bibliography of almost 300 citations to materials published between 1980 and 1995. The clearly written annotations include comments on each study's objective, sample and methods, results, and conclusions, plus an evaluation of its quality. No other recent bibliography in this area is available. This useful volume will be of interest to those who study aging and religion and those who work with the elderly."-Choice
...an excellent bibliography of almost 300 citations to materials published between 1980 and 1995. The clearly written annotations include comments on each study's objective, sample and methods, results, and conclusions, plus an evaluation of its quality. No other recent bibliography in this area is available. This useful volume will be of interest to those who study aging and religion and those who work with the elderly.-Choice
-this reference biblography will provide an excellent starting point for most researchers investigating the relationship between religion and aging in the Western world.-ARBA
"-this reference biblography will provide an excellent starting point for most researchers investigating the relationship between religion and aging in the Western world."-ARBA
..."an excellent bibliography of almost 300 citations to materials published between 1980 and 1995. The clearly written annotations include comments on each study's objective, sample and methods, results, and conclusions, plus an evaluation of its quality. No other recent bibliography in this area is available. This useful volume will be of interest to those who study aging and religion and those who work with the elderly."-Choice

Author Bio

HAROLD G. KOENIG, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, is Director of the Program on Religion, Aging, and Health, one of the first academic and research programs of its kind in the United States./e Koenig has received a five-year National Institutes of Mental Health Academic Award to study the diagnosis and treatment of depression in older persons with health problems. His recent books include Religion, Health, and Aging (Greenwood Press, 1988) and Aging and God (1994).