The Gallup Poll and General Social Survey have asked Americans about their religious service attendance since 1939 and 1972, respectively. With remarkable consistency, these two surveys have estimated that just over 40% of the American population regularly attends religious services. Yet, recent research has called this “gold standard” into question, citing three sources of bias in these estimates: (a) ambiguous item wording, (b) an ambiguously specified time frame; and (c) data collection methods that lend themselves to socially desirable responding. Several lines of research have developed to eliminate or minimize these sources of bias, but these efforts have yielded a wide variety of results, with some estimates being half as much as the gold standard! Methodological and psychometric differences are not the only source of variation, however. The characteristics of those sampled into studies also introduces variability. Given that attendance estimates are likely influenced by variations in both methodology and sampling, this study uses meta-analytic techniques to estimate the extent of their influence and to estimate the attendance rate after controlling for their influence. The findings indicate that efforts to reduce socially desirable responding have had the greatest impact on the attendance rate, followed by efforts to overcome the ambiguously specified time-frame. In addition, attendance rates are positively related to the proportion of African Americans, Whites and married respondents sampled, as well as mean years of education. Attendance rates are also negatively related to the proportion of 18 to 30 year-old respondents sampled. After controlling for these methodological and socio-demographic study characteristics, the prevalence of weekly attendance in America was variously estimated as 41.4% for the gold standard items, 43.1% for items measuring attendance in the past week, 27.8% when asking respondents what they did yesterday (i.e., on Sunday via the time-use methodology) and 22.7% when attendance was counted manually.

<p>Research examining the relationships between religious indicators and the cardiovascular health of individuals and populations has been relatively understudied in the Canadian context. This thesis contains three main studies, developed from a sequential explanatory mixed method research design.</p> <p>The first study examined the association between the frequency of religious service attendance (RSA) and prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD), diabetes and high blood pressure in Canada. The Saskatchewan sample of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS-4.1) was used to build multivariable logistic regression models. The analysis revealed participants who attended religious services more than once a week had lower prevalent odds of CHD (OR= 0.82, 95% CI 0.61-1.11, p>0.05), diabetes (OR=0.60, 95% CI 0.45-0.80, p</p> <p>The second study was qualitative and undertaken to help interpret and explain the quantitative results from the CCHS. Twelve semi-structured interviews with ordained pastors and three focus groups with parishioners in Catholic, Anglican and United churches were conducted in Canada. The findings suggest that attending religious services: (1) promotes mental health; (2) provides social support and activities; and (3) promotes health and lifestyle behaviours to lower CHD risk.</p> <p>Qualitative data from the second study was used for the third study, which identified relevant factors associated with the implementation of heart health promotion programs in churches. Among the various factors identified, pastor leadership, funding for a parish nurse, community-focused interventions, secured infrastructure and social support were important to facilitate health promotion programs in churches.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)