The Relationship Between Religiosity & Selected Health Behaviors of African Americans of the Pentecostal Faith

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between religiosity and selected health behaviors of African Americans in the Pentecostal faith. A 43 question printed survey was administered to 300 adult attendees from selected Pentecostal churches. The purposive sample was obtained from the Holy Christian Church of Mankato, Brooklyn Park, and St. Paul. The printed survey focused on information about demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, education, fellowship, membership, and also health behaviors, perceived weight, weight goals, health classes desired, utilization of a community health educator and religiosity. The findings of the study indicated that high religiosity had a minimal effect on the overall selected behaviors for adult respondents. The results showed that the respondents in the study lack exercise and do not engage in healthy eating behaviors. Recommendations for further study included conducting the study with other church denominations as well as a more diverse population. This would allow for more statistical analyses to be carried out with respect to the relationship between religiosity and healthy lifestyles of African American church attendees. Finally, there is great potential for futher research to examine how health educators and church leaders can collaborate together in educating African American church attendees on the need for healthy lifestyles. Identifying the most efficient and effective ways of this collaboration provide additional research opportunities in this area