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The Protective Effects of Religious Beliefs on Behavioral Health Factors Among Low Income African American Adolescents in Chicago

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Abstract

Religious involvement has long been argued to have protective effects for negative behavioral health outcomes for vulnerable youth. This study builds on the existing resilience literature and need for more studies that examine protective factors associated with behavioral health. A sample of 638 low-income African American adolescents in Chicago to examine within group variations of the influence of religious involvement on delinquency, school engagement, substance use and sexual risk behaviors, and whether such relationships differ by gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Logistic regression findings documented that greater religious involvement was protective with regards to lower rates of delinquency, drug use, risky sexual behaviors and higher rates of school engagement, and that gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status varied for several of these relationships. Overall findings are discussed with regards to future research.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the STI/HIV Intervention Network and the Center for Health Administration Studies at the University of Chicago awarded to principal investigator Dexter Voisin.

Author Contributions

D.H.K.: Analyzed the analyses and wrote the results. J.H.: wrote the literature review and edited the final manuscript. L.T.: assisted with writing and editing the paper. D.R.V.: conceptualized, designed and conducted the study and was the senior and supervising author for the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Welfare, Chungwoon University, Hongseong, Chungnam, 32244, Republic of Korea

    Dong Ha Kim

  2. School of Social Service Administration, The University of Chicago, 969 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Justin Harty

  3. Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, 1800 I Sacramento, CA, 95811, USA

    Lois Takahashi

  4. School of Social Service Administration, The University of Chicago, 969 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Dexter R. Voisin

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Correspondence to Dong Ha Kim.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The University of Chicago provided IRB approval for this study.

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Kim, D.H., Harty, J., Takahashi, L. et al. The Protective Effects of Religious Beliefs on Behavioral Health Factors Among Low Income African American Adolescents in Chicago. J Child Fam Stud 27, 355–364 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0891-5

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