College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Fountain of youth?

Study by Iowa State psychologist says that attending church can extend your life.
Two decades ago, Iowa was chosen for a national study on aging. That study focused on disease, but Dan Russell and several colleagues wanted to take a different approach.

Because their research interests were social relationships and loneliness, Russell, Carolyn Cutrona, both now professors of psychology at Iowa State, and two other colleagues focused their study on those areas and not disease.

Beginning in 1981, the research team began interviewing 3,000 Iowans 65 years of age and older on issues relating to stress, mental and physical health, and morale and social contact. The group was tracked for 13 years before Russell and his research group began looking at mortality rates in 1994.

"About half of the people that had started out with our group had died," Russell said. There was something interesting about the living members of the group ®¢ they had attended church services more often than those who died had.

"There was a significant reduction in the mortality rate from people who never attended church to those that attended church more than once a week," Russell said. "It's obvious that people that went to church would have more social support, but it didn't fully explain the lower mortality effect."

In a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Russell and his colleagues write that their study indicates there are several different aspects of interpersonal relationships predictive of mortality. But church attendance clearly emerged as an important predictor of mortality.

"It is important to emphasize that attending church was found to be predictive of mortality after controlling for both the individual's level of functioning, which may limit his or her ability to attend church, and social support, which the individual may derive from relationships at church," Russell said.

The study indicates that regular churchgoers may live longer because of a stronger sense of spiritually, or a sense that life has a greater purpose, Russell said.

The team's study is currently on hold after the original funding ran out. Russell and his colleagues are seeking additional funding to do a more extensive study of the link between church going and living longer.

"Our study has established that individuals who attend church are less likely to die at a younger age," he said. "Our approach to a future study will focus on why going to church will have that positive of an effect."

And like the previous study, elderly Iowans will be featured.

"Iowa is the perfect place for this type of study," Russell said. "The state has a large population of elderly. And in other places you lose track of people because they move or they don't want to participate."