Interactive Relations of Religious Coping, Race, and Sex on Telomere Length in African Americans and Whites

Abstract

In the United States (U.S.), religion is a salient source of comfort and strength, particularly among African Americans and women. Studies have examined how religious coping may be protective of early health deterioration, but few have attended to how these associations may vary by race and sex, conjointly. In recent years, increased attention has been given to the protective effects of religious involvement on telomere length, an indicator of cellular aging and psychosocial stress. Findings are somewhat inconsistent, and seldom explore religious coping, specifically. The current study examined whether religious coping is linked to telomere length and if these relations were moderated by race and sex. Participants were 252 African American and White urban-dwelling, socioeconomically diverse adults, (mean age = 48.31 years; 49.2% women; 51.6% below 125% of the poverty line; 31.3% earned less than a high school education) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study. Multivariable analyses examined interactive associations of religious coping, race, and sex to telomere length. The hypothesized interactions and main effects were not significant. The current study suggests that the interactive relations of religious coping, race, and sex do not account for telomere length differences in the present sample. Whereas this may be due to a lack of relation, it is also possible that the study's measures were unable to detect any existing associations. Therefore, recommendations are included to address these challenges and improve future research on the studies of religion and telomere biology.