Religiosity and Risk of Depression in a Multi-ethnic Sample

Findings from community psychiatric epidemiologic studies have consistently indicated that blacks report lower rates of depression than whites. This paper considers whether these differences could, in part, be explained by subjective religiosity and church attendance. Data for this study were drawn from the National Survey of American Life, which includes a national population-based, multi-ethnic sample of African Americans, Caribbean Blacks (Caribbean-born or first or second generation descendants), and whites (n=6,082). Depression was evaluated using the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the effects of subjective religiosity and church attendance on lifetime odds of major depression and models were adjusted for age, gender, education, and marital status. We tested for interactions between race/ethnicity and religiosity and then race/ethnicity and church attendance to determine whether religiosity and church attendance were associated with lower odds of depression in African Americans and Caribbean Blacks. Overall, African Americans (OR=0.54; CI: 0.45-0.65) and Caribbean Blacks (OR=0.66; CI: 0.48-0.91) reported significantly lower odds of depression than whites but these differences were not explained by religiosity or church attendance. No statistically significant interactions were observed between race/ethnicity and subjective religiosity or race/ethnicity and church attendance. Future research is needed to examine other potential factors that could protect against the development of depression as well as continued research efforts to determine whether lower rates of depression observed in African Americans and Caribbean Blacks are explained by racial/ethnic differences in depressoin diagnosis and/or measurement.