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Religious Involvement Measurement Model in a National Sample of African Americans

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Abstract

This study examined the factor structure of a brief measure of religious involvement developed previously in research with African American women. Telephone interview methods were used with a national sample of both African American women and men (N = 2,370). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the distinction between religious beliefs and religious behaviors factors and indicated that the factor loadings were equivalent for women and men. Women reported higher levels of religious involvement than men. These results support the validity of this relatively brief instrument for assessing these two dimensions of religious involvement for both African American women and men.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (# 1 R01 CA105202) and was approved by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (#X051116001) and University of Maryland (#08-0328) Institutional Review Boards. We would like to acknowledge Mel Johnson and Emma Quaker-Sizemore for their important role in the data collection on this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 327 Ryals Building, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA

    David L. Roth

  2. Department of Philosophy, Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL, USA

    Isaac Mwase

  3. Department of Behavioral and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Cheryl L. Holt

  4. Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Eddie M. Clark

  5. Seward County Health Department, Liberal, KS, USA

    Susan N. Lukwago

  6. George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Matthew W. Kreuter

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  1. David L. Roth
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  2. Isaac Mwase
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  3. Cheryl L. Holt
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  4. Eddie M. Clark
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  5. Susan N. Lukwago
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  6. Matthew W. Kreuter
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Correspondence to David L. Roth.

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Roth, D.L., Mwase, I., Holt, C.L. et al. Religious Involvement Measurement Model in a National Sample of African Americans. J Relig Health 51, 567–578 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9475-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9475-7

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