Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Abstract: Given the rising mental health challenges among youth, it can be insightful to study the relationship between adolescents’ mental health and other aspects of life practices. Research suggests that religious involvement, such as attending services and engaging in prayer, can provide adolescents with psychosocial support, serving as protective factors against depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts (Aggarwal et.al, 2023). In this project, adolescents from the Wave 1 data of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) 1994-2008 are examined. The levels of religious practice and emotional well-being were characterized based on the adolescents’ responses to questions about their happiness, depression, religious attendance, etc. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed using Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. Religious practice is shown to have a weak but significant correlation with emotional well-being — a higher level of religious practice correlates with a higher level of emotional well-being. However, the relationship between the two variables is shown to be complex when being looked at in individual groups of religions as the significance declines and varying relationships occur within each group. More research is needed to extract more nuances in seeking a better prediction for emotional well-being.
Hudson-Wang-QAC-201-Poster-1