Religious women in the US are more likely to use health screening

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.138

BMJ 2006;332:138 (21 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.138

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Religious women in the US are more likely to use health screening

Abergavenny Roger Dobson

Women in the United States who attend religious services are more likely to have used health screening examinations than those who do not, but patterns differ substantially between different religions. Women who are evangelical Protestant Christians are less likely to use preventive health screening services than their Jewish or mainstream Christian counterparts, a study published online on 6 January 2006 in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine has shown (www.springerlink.com, doi: 10.1007/s10865-005-9035-2).

Jewish women, for example, were four times more likely to report having had cervical screening than evangelical protestant Christians, while mainstream protestant Christians were more likely than evangelical Protestants to report having had a mammogram.

"Religion has been a particularly neglected social factor in health research, and findings such as those shown here may compel healthcare workers and health researchers to pay more attention to religious involvement as a potentially significant correlate of . . . [Full text of this article]

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