Functional Status and Church Participation of the Elderly: Theoretical and Practical Implications By: Rebecca G. Adams, PhD and Jean L. Brittain, MA Adams, R.G. , & Brittain, J.L. 1988 Functional Status and Church Participation of the Elderly: Theoretical and Practical Implications Journal of Religion and Aging (now called Journal of Religious Gerontology) 33/4 1988 35-48. Made available courtesy of Taylor & Francis: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t904095645~db=all ***Note: Figures may be missing from this format of the document Abstract: This paper shows how functional impairment on five dimensions, physical health, mental health, economic re- sources, ability to perform the activities of daily living, and social resources, affected church participation of the elderly in a rural county of North Carolina. The data consist of 412 interviews with persons who were 60 years old or older in 1985. The instrument was a modified version of the OARS. The implications of these findings for the design of both studies of the relationship between aging and church participation and church programs to facilitate the involvement of the frail elderly are discussed. Article: Churches provide elderly persons with important opportunities for religious and social involvement. 1 There are positive associations between religious activities and both happiness and adjustment to old age. 2 It is thus potentially very important to find ways for churches to facilitate the continued involvement of older persons. The literature focusing on the relationship between aging and church attendance shows different results. Cross- sectional studies suggest that church attendance peaks when people are in their sixties but decreases in advanced old age. This suggests that people become more religious as they age, 3 but cease attending church when they are very old and unable. 4 Longitudinal studies, on the other hand, suggest that the relationship between aging and church attendance can be explained by cohort membership. 5 In other words, older persons attend church more often than younger and have maintained it during old age. At least one study discusses a period effect on church attendance. Wingrove and Alston reported that all cohorts showed declines in church attendance after 1965, a pattern that reflects the secularization of American society. 6 One problem with the studies cited above is that they relied on chronological age as the only measure of both aging and cohort membership. 6 The relationship between aging and church participation can also be studied by using a functional rather than a chronological measure of age. For example, researchers have shown that poor physical health, one functional indicator of old age, is related to low church attendance. 8 Physical health, however, is not the only measure of age-related functional capacity. Researchers at Duke University have stressed the importance of viewing the older person's ability to function holistically. They have developed a method of multidimensional functional assessment called the Older Americans Resources and Services (OARS) strategy. 9 The OARS methodology is designed to measure the older person's levels of impairment in physical health, mental health, economic resources, social resources, and ability to perform the necessary activities of daily living. Each dimension of functional impairment is constructed from a long battery of questions. For example, the measure of physical health combines information from 47 questions. Each summary measure is a six point scale that divides persons into those who are: (I) unimpaired. (2) slightly impaired, (3) mildly impaired, (4) moderately impaired, (5) severely impaired, and (6) completely impaired on that dimension. The validity and reliability of these scales are well established. 10