Abstract

        This study addresses two quite different questions. First, what subpopulations of French and non-French Roman Catholics, United Church affiliates, and Anglicans are most likely to worship weekly, monthly, less often, or not at all? The charts in Chapters 1 and 2, plus the tables in Appendix 2 portray these patterns.

        Secondly, how is worship frequency, education and other factors related to the health of the body, mind and spirit of adults in these faith communities? A whole range of behaviours and conditions relating to overall health are explored for all adults, and the employed as well. The regression results in Chapter 3 provide answers to this question.

        The faiths studied in this report are Canada's largest. The weekly worship rate for Canada is highest for the non-French Roman Catholics, 29%, followed by French Roman Catholics, 17%, United Church, 15%, and Anglican, 14%. Rates vary significantly by region and subpopulation.

        The non-French Catholic rate is highest in Prince Edward Island, 45%, over twice as high as the lowest rate, 21% in Quebec. Among metro areas for which we have reliable estimates, this rate ranges from 19% in Ottawa-Hull, to 35% in Toronto and 36% in Winnipeg. The weekly rate is 29% in all of Canada's non-metro areas, about the same as in Oshawa and Edmonton.

        The French Roman Catholic provincial rates range from 14% in Quebec to 44% in Manitoba. The United Church rate varies from 10% in British Columbia to 27% in Prince Edward Island, while the Anglican rate varies from 11% in Nova Scotia to 18% in Manitoba.

        In each of the four faith groups the weekly worship rate is higher for women than men. For marital status groups lowest rate is for those living common-law, and the highest is for the widowed population. In part this reflects the effect of age, rates increase with age, and the widowed are older than those living common-law.

        The rates for the married population are higher than those of the separated or divorced in each faith group. The widest differences by marital status are found among French Roman Catholics - 3% living common-law worship weekly, and 41% of the widowed - and the non-French Catholics - 10% living common-law, and 50% widowed.

        Of the 85 behaviours and statuses analysed, some results are as follows. First, worship frequency is associated with higher education among non-French Roman Catholics, Anglicans and United Church affiliates, but with lower education among French Catholics. Worship frequency is associated with less marijuana smoking.

        An example of how education and worship frequency both influence health in a positive way is illustrated in a number of the analyses. For example, we see that in all four-faith groups the number of exercise episodes per month, each of 15 minutes duration or longer, is positively associated with both education and worship.

        The perceived quality of mental health is positively associated with education in all four faith groups, but with worship frequency only among non-French Catholics and Anglicans. It is consistently negatively associated with marijuana smoking, and positively associated with sleep. Mental health is higher in Quebec than Ontario in all faith groups.

        The body mass index of adults aged 20 to 64 is negatively associated with education in all groups, and unrelated to worship. For ten of the 85 indicators of health, significant associations with education, worship, marijuana smoking and sleep are tabulated: many are significant as expected.