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.

O problema da violência contra a mulher é um fenômeno mundial. O movimento feminista, no final dos anos 60, se fortaleça e começa a denunciar alguns casos, dando corpo e visibilidade a esta questão, que até então permanecia no campo do privado. O objetivo dessa pesquisa foi identificar situações de violência doméstica entre as usuárias das várias clínicas do Centro de Referência da Saúde da Mulher e de Nutrição, Alimentação e Desenvolvimento Infantil (CRSMNADI) do Hospital Pérola Byington. Os dados coletados foram obtidos por meio da utilização de Metodologia Qualitativa, denominada grupo focal, onde 164 mulheres reunidas em 12 grupos falaram sobre as formas e conseqüências da violência doméstica em suas vidas. O estudo permitiu compreender os significados e o sentido que as mulheres em situação de violência atribuíram as suas experiências. As informações foram organizadas em categorias construídas durante o próprio processo de análise, procurando assim contextualizar as multifaces e multicausas da violência doméstica vivenciada pelas usuárias do serviço. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que a maioria das usuárias vivem em situação de violência doméstica, tendo como conseqüência agravos de saúde e, portanto necessitam de atendimento em serviços de saúde / Violence against women is a global phenomenon. The Feminist Movement has strengthened in the late sixties and since then it has began to report some facts that so far we did not know. The aim of this research was identify the violence at home. This research was made at Nutricional Health Women Reference Center and Food Children Development at Pérola Byington Hospital. Data was collected through qualitative methodology called focal group, where 164 women were gathered in twelve groups in order to talk about different form and consequences of domestic violence in their lives. This survey allowed us to understand the meanings that women suffering from domestic violence attributed to their experiences. The information was organized into categories constructed during the process of analysis, aiming to contextualize the multi faceted of domestic violence experienced by the women users of this service. This results revealed that most women live in a situation of domestic violence which compromise their health and, therefore, in need of attending specialized health services.

O problema da violência contra a mulher é um fenômeno mundial. O movimento feminista, no final dos anos 60, se fortaleça e começa a denunciar alguns casos, dando corpo e visibilidade a esta questão, que até então permanecia no campo do privado. O objetivo dessa pesquisa foi identificar situações de violência doméstica entre as usuárias das várias clínicas do Centro de Referência da Saúde da Mulher e de Nutrição, Alimentação e Desenvolvimento Infantil (CRSMNADI) do Hospital Pérola Byington. Os dados coletados foram obtidos por meio da utilização de Metodologia Qualitativa, denominada grupo focal, onde 164 mulheres reunidas em 12 grupos falaram sobre as formas e conseqüências da violência doméstica em suas vidas. O estudo permitiu compreender os significados e o sentido que as mulheres em situação de violência atribuíram as suas experiências. As informações foram organizadas em categorias construídas durante o próprio processo de análise, procurando assim contextualizar as multifaces e multicausas da violência doméstica vivenciada pelas usuárias do serviço. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que a maioria das usuárias vivem em situação de violência doméstica, tendo como conseqüência agravos de saúde e, portanto necessitam de atendimento em serviços de saúde / Violence against women is a global phenomenon. The Feminist Movement has strengthened in the late sixties and since then it has began to report some facts that so far we did not know. The aim of this research was identify the violence at home. This research was made at Nutricional Health Women Reference Center and Food Children Development at Pérola Byington Hospital. Data was collected through qualitative methodology called focal group, where 164 women were gathered in twelve groups in order to talk about different form and consequences of domestic violence in their lives. This survey allowed us to understand the meanings that women suffering from domestic violence attributed to their experiences. The information was organized into categories constructed during the process of analysis, aiming to contextualize the multi faceted of domestic violence experienced by the women users of this service. This results revealed that most women live in a situation of domestic violence which compromise their health and, therefore, in need of attending specialized health services.

This study examines the influence of religion on economic attitudes over time. To do this, it focuses on how the impact changes without camouflaging the effect of religious beliefs and practices. It partially adopts the approach by Guiso et al. (2003) to test the enduring importance of religion and then extended to capture its influence over time–using OLS and Panel regression models. An “Integrated Values Surveys 1981-2014” data set from both the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Survey (EVS) is employed in the study, using the latest available waves. Over time, I find that religion remains significant and statistically correlated to the development of institutions favorable for economic growth. Although these effects vary across different religious denominations, however, none of them seems to be an impediment to the development of government institutions, and for the most part a free market economy. Further analysis reveals that religious belief, irrespective of service attendance, appears to be an important measure of religiosity, and excluding its effect from the study of religion seems to conceal much of its influence on people’s attitudes. Religious people tend to exhibit more positive economic attitudes than atheists, and these effects are virtually significant across categories, even if we focus on how they differ over time. However, religious people seem to be less concern about market competition but are more likely to support its fairness. For some religions, these effects tend to remain constant over time, while for others, there are significant changes across denominations. Another key observation is that conservative attitudes toward women for almost all religions tend to be weakening, moving one year in time, compared to the result reported by Guiso et al. (2003). But this effect is however opposite regarding women’s right to education and roles as housewives, where nearly all religions are becoming far more conservative over time. Perhaps not surprising also, all religions are becoming far more trustful of the government, the police, the army and the justice systems, although their attitudes toward strangers and people of other races seem to be moving in opposite direction. Therefore, contrary to conventional wisdom on the persistence of cultural traits on economic outcomes, this study provides one of the newest evidence that religious values and preferences are susceptible to changes over time, and that these effects are observable between generations, moving 33 years up, from 1981 to 2014. / Master's Thesis

<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)