Nativity, Religiosity, and Mental Health in the United States

Religiosity has been linked to better mental health including lower rates of depression and other psychiatric problems. However, little is known about the association between religiosity and mental health in immigrant populations. This study examined the role of religiosity in the association between foreign-born status and occurrence of dysthymia (long-term depressed mood) in the U.S. population using acculturative stress and religious coping perspectives. We hypothesized that dysthymia would be more prevalent among foreign-born than US-natives because of acculturative stress. We further expected that religiosity would help to explain this difference as a protective factor. We tested our hypotheses using a representative, longitudinal sample of U.S. adults. Dysthymia was assessed per DSM-IV criteria. Religious activity was a scale based on how often respondents attended religious services, how important were religious or spiritual beliefs to respondents, and how many members of their religious group they saw socially at least every two weeks.  Acculturation, stress, sociodemographic and other factors were also assessed. Prevalence and 3-year incidence of dysthymia were modeled using nested logistic regression (weighted analyses).  Immigrants were more likely than US-natives to have dysthymia, controlling for sociodemographic factors. This difference was explained after accounting for religious activity, acculturation, stress, and other factors. Religious activity remained a significant predictor of dysthymia after all adjustments: higher levels of religiosity were associated with a lower likelihood of dysthymia among the respondents over and beyond other factors.  There was no difference between foreign-born and US-natives in developing dysthymia over time, but religiosity remained a significant predictor (lower likelihood) of developing dysthymia over time in the total sample. Further analyses will examine the differences in the effect of religiosity between the foreign-born and the US-native populations and discuss the findings in the light of acculturative stress and religious coping perspectives. Public health implications will also be addressed.