title: Religion, death of a loved one, and hypertension among older adults in Japan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To see whether three dimensions of religion (private religious practices, religious coping, and belief in the afterlife) buffer the effect of the death of a significant other on change in self-reported hypertension over time.
  
  
  METHODS
  Interviews were conducted with a nationally representative sample of people aged 60 and older in Japan at two points in time, 1996 and 1999. Complete data were available on 1,723 older Japanese. Respondents were asked a series of questions about their religious beliefs and practices, whether a family member or close friend had died in the past year, and whether they had hypertension.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The data suggest that older adults in Japan who experienced the death of a loved one but who believed in a good afterlife were less likely to report they had hypertension at the follow-up interview than elderly people in Japan who lost a close other but did not believe in a good afterlife.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results suggest how one overlooked dimension of religion (i.e., religious beliefs) may bolster the health of older people in the face of adversity.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2029, USA. nkrause@umich.edu
authors.forename: Neal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.forename: Jersey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Benjamin A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Hidehiro
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sugisawa
authors.forename: Hye-Kyung
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugihara
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology; D001293:Attitude to Death; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002016:Buddhism / Q000523:psychology; D015444:Exercise; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008016:Life Change Events; D016015:Logistic Models; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires