Health, ageing, religion and coping in Europe

The aim of the study is to investigate relations between religion, health and coping in ageing societies. We focus our work on seniors in chosen European countries. Increasing proportion of older people can have a significant impact of health conditions and quality of life of those populations. Many seniors have health conditions that can impair the quality of life, including disabling conditions, depressions and mental health problems.
We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which gives representative data on non-institutionalized sample of the 50 plus population in Europe and detailed information on health, work, household-situation, cognition and financial situation.
Tentative results suggest that both being less religious and having high cognitive function seems to be associated with lower risk of depression. However, among those who have experienced a heart attack higher religiosity is positively correlated with an absence of depression. These findings hold for all regions in Europe and for both women and men.