Race and Ethnicity, Religion Involvement, Church-based Social Support and Subjective Health in United States: A Case of Moderated Mediation

Background: to test if social support and ethnicity mediate/moderatethe association between religion involvement and subjective health inthe united states.methods: this is a secondary analysis of national survey of americanlife, 2003. hierarchical regression was fit to a national householdprobability sample of adult african americans (n = 3570), caribbeanblacks (n = 1621), and whites (n = 891). frequency of church attendance,positive/negative church?based social support, ethnicity, and subjectivehealth (overall life satisfaction and self-rated mental health) wereconsidered as predictor, mediator, moderator and outcome, respectively.results: frequency of church attendance had a significant and positiveassociation with mental health and life satisfaction among all ethnicgroups. frequency of church attendance was also correlated with positiveand negative social support among all ethnic groups. church?based socialsupport fully mediated the association between frequency of churchattendance and overall life satisfaction among african americans butnot among caribbean blacks, or whites. church?based social support,however, partially mediated the association between frequency of churchattendance and overall mental health among african americans but notamong caribbean blacks or whites.conclusion: ethnicity shapes how church?based social support mediatesthe association between religious involvement and subjective health. ourresults showed a moderating mediation effect of ethnicity and socialsupport on the religious involvement-subjective health linkage, in a waythat it is only among african americans that social support is a pathwayfor the beneficial health effect of religious involvement.