Research Type: Religious, Ethnic & Cultural Affiliation

There is now a significant body of evidence that marital dissolution (divorce and separation) is detrimental to health for a significant segment of the population and to their children. Although much has been written of the standard demographic and socio-economic factors influencing risk of divorce, much less is known about the effects of interpersonal differences between the partners. Intercensal births and data accounting for deaths within the household are also included to allow adjustment for known stressors on marriage.

This research aims to gain a better understanding of how cultural mixing influences human behavioural diversity and individual and community well-being; the specific focus will be on fertility outcomes in the context of Protestant and Catholic communities in contemporary Northern Ireland.

There has been a long history of epidemiological analysis looking at how religion influences population health and mortality, for example in the impact of religion on both all-cause and cause-specific mortality. However, analysis has not usually concentrated on differences between current experience, religious affiliation of upbringing, and no reported affiliation. This latter aspect of religiosity is becoming more important given the increasing secularisation of developed societies and the associated rise in numbers of individuals who define themselves as non-religious.

Census-based measures of self-reported health are widely used throughout the UK to assess need and as part of resource allocation formulae to distribute HPSS resources. It is important to know that such measures are not significantly biased by social or cultural factors. The proposed study aims to use the NILS-Mortality Linkage Study to examine the relationship between self-reported health in the 2001 census and subsequent mortality in the following five years to see if this relationship is modified because of the individual respondent’s religious affiliation, country of birth, or by levels of chronic unemployment in the area in which they live. These associations are strongly indicated by other research evidence. The results from the proposed research should help determine the direction and extent of any cultural and socio-economic factors influencing the reporting of SRH in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland (NI) is a society spatially segregated along religious denomination lines. This study looks at some of the implications of this for population health in NI. In particular, the study examines (i) health outcomes associated with minority status for groups living within larger ‘other’ communities; and (ii) health outcomes associated with living as part of larger homogeneous communities which may have developed exclusionist social networks and mores – scenarios testable for both positive and negative health outcomes. More generally, while the immediate context for this study is NI, findings of this kind can have implications for the study of health in other minority populations. Indices of community composition will be derived quantifying the major religious denominations at area level.