The Analysis Of The Influnence Of Religious Belief On The Elderly's Health

With an aggravated aging level, the health of the elderly not only refers to family happiness,but also involves social welfare.Recently,the number of religions is increasing among the elderly,many of them believe that religion can cure disease.Whether religion has influence on health or not? What effects? This paper analysis the relation between religion and health by using CGSS2010 data.Results find the elderly who believes in Buddhism and Taoism has better mentality and health self-reported than those who have no religious beliefs, but in daily activity, there is no statistically significance;The elderly who believes in Islamic has lower health self-reported than those who have no religious beliefs, but there is no statistically significance in daily activity and mentality. The elderly who believes in Folk religion and Christianity has no statistically significant in daily activity,mentality and health self-reported. Compared with the non-elderly,results find that old people believe in Buddhism and Taoism which are good for their health,believe in Christianism which has no negative impacts on health,believe in Islamic which have bad effects on health. In addition, other control variables: population, social economy, life style and external support also have different effects on different health dimension.