Religion, Race, and Place Project

A multimethod project that examines the role of religious beliefs and institutions in shaping health guidance among marginalized populations. This project seeks to illuminate the multidimensional role of religion in health guidance and how the intersectionality of race and place mutes or exacerbates these relationships. The preponderance of evidence suggests facets of religious involvement foster better physical health, reduced mortality risk, and enhanced mental health. However, the literature identifies several specific aspects of religion that appear to have been linked with undesirable health outcomes, such as higher BMI, resistance to treatment regimens, and delayed mental health care. The explanations for religions negative impact on health have included, “spiritual struggles,” images of God, preoccupation with human sinfulness, and strong views about divine control of health.  This project explores the complexity of the role of religion in shaping health behaviors, while also accounting for the interaction of race and location. Using Cockerham’s theory of health lifestyles, as our base, we argue certain religious beliefs and practices encourage engagement in riskier health behavior, unwillingness to update risk assessment, and wariness of outsiders. 

Using the diversity of the Texas Triangle (e.g. racial, ethnic, urban and rural populations, and various religious congregations), the project implements a three-pronged multi-methods approach. The first prong examines the social media posts of religious leaders and institutions to assess how they address health. The second prong is a state-wide survey, targeting those in rural areas and members racial and ethnic minorities, to examine how religious beliefs and practice correlate with health assessments, attitudes, and behaviors. Using established measures of health assessment, health behaviors, and religious beliefs and practices. The multilingual survey (English, Spanish and Vietnamese) will provide a wide assessment of the linkage between religion and health among the state as a whole and provide the ability to assess this linkage among the targeted populations. The third prong is a series of ethnographic studies of urban, rural, and minority religious institutions and communities.