Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 24, No. 3, Fall 1985

Religion and Youth Substance Use B A R B A R A R. L O R C H and R O B E R T H. H U G H E S A B S T R A C T : This research study of 13,878 y o u t h s indicates t h a t religion is not by itself a very i m p o r t a n t predictor of y o u t h substance use. It is, however, more strongly related to alcohol use t h a n drug use. Also, fundamentalist religious groups have the lowest percentages of s u b s t a n c e use in general, while the more liberal types of religious groups have the lowest percentages of heavy s u b s t a n c e use. Of the six dimensions of religion used in the s t u d y to predict y o u t h substance use, importance of religion to the subject was the most important, with church membership second, and the fundamentalism-liberalism scale of religious groups third.

Introduction

Although religion is thought to be a significant factor in the United States today, it has been somewhat disappointing as an independent variable in predicting other behavior. Part of the problem in the use of religion as an independent variable is separating its impact from that of social class, education, sex, age, or other variables to which it is related.1 Other areas of concern have been the question of whether it should be treated as unidimensional or multidimensional and the difficulty of measuring religiosity. 2 Some scholars have suggested distinguishing among religious belief, practice, knowledge, experience, and consequences. 3The work that has been done on the scaling of these dimensions has shown religion to be a very illusive and complex variable and points up the fact that j u s t belonging to different religious groups does not necessarily indicate that subjects will differ in other ways. Research has generally shown more differences within religious groups than among them.4 Despite the problems with measuring religion in a meaningful way, research continues to investigate its relation to moral choices and behavior. Results in the broad area of juvenile delinquency in recent years have been mixed, with little evidence that religion is a deterrent to delinquent behavior. 5 In the area of adolescent substance use, however, most research has shown a relationship between religion and alcohol and drug usage. Although research studies investigating the relationship between religion and y o u t h substance use have B a r b a r a R. Lorch, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and Robert H. Hughes, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and Chairperson of the Sociology D e p a r t m e n t at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. 197

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resulted in somewhat disparate findings, most research in this area has shown some relationship between the two. Differences in the findings in some cases m a y be accounted for by the use of different dimensions of religion and religiosity,6 as well as different measures of substance use. Some research studies show a relationship between religious affiliation and use of alcohol and drugs b y youth. 7 More meaningful relationships than those between religious affiliation and youth substance use have been found between participation in church and church-related activities and youth alcohol or drug use. 8 However, the most consistent and significant findings have been those reporting the inhibiting influence of religious beliefs on youth substance use.9 In many studies concerning youth substance use, all Protestants have been classified as one homogeneous population, despite recognized differences among Protestant denominations. In other studies a limited number of specific religious groups has been selected for study without comparing them to all other denominations. Therefore, in this study many different religious groupings are included and compared. Furthermore, the investigators arranged the religious groups on a fundamentalism-liberalism scale as an additional dimension of religiosity. Since so many studies have found church attendance related to youth alcohol and drug use, this dimension of religiosity was also used by the authors in their study. And last, the importance of religion to the subject was included because of the consistent research findings that religious belief is a deterrent to drinking and drug use. Previous research studies concerning the relationship between religion and substance use have used a number of different dimensions of religion, thus producing much confusion concerning religion's actual role as a deterrent. The purpose of this research is to determine the relative importance of various dimensions of religion as a deterrent to alcohol and drug usage. In view of the complexity of religion as a variable, in this research the authors have used six different dimensions of religion as independent variables to investigate their relative influence on youth alcohol and drug use. These are: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

religious membership, degree of fundamentalism-liberalism of religious group, church attendance, the importance of religion to the subject, a combination of church attendance and importance of religion, and a combination of fundamentalism-liberalism of religious groups and the importance of religion to the subject.

Age and sex were controlled to eliminate whatever effect they may have on the relationship between religion and substance usage. Although a variety of different dimensions of religion have been used over the years in studies of religion and substance use, few have employed several dimensions of religion, and also alcohol and drug use, in the same s t u d y in an a t t e m p t to assess their relative impact.

Barbara R. Lorch and Robert H. Hughes

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Methodology A survey on youth life style for the Colorado Springs metropolitan area for the total population for each grade in junior and senior high school that agreed to participate in the study was undertaken in May of 1983. This study was sponsored by the Colorado Springs Citizens Goals Committee and conducted by the members of the Sociology Department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. The 160-item questionnaire dealt with young people's involvement and participation in community activities and institutions; attitudes and experiences in relation to alcohol and drugs; information relevant to their aspirations, achievements, and expectations; and demographic information. Four of the six school districts in the metropolitan area agreed to allow the anonymous questionnaire to be administered to each of their junior and senior high schools. A "survey packet" was prepared for each classroom for a school. This packet contained questionnaires, answer sheets, a few extra lead pencils, a special set of instructions for the teacher who was to supervise the survey, and an envelope in which to place completed answer sheets. These packets were delivered to a school the day before their administration and picked up the day after. The number of returned questionnaires was 13,878--87% of those students estimated to be in attendance on the date of the survey in the four cooperating school districts. This response rate represents an extremely high degree of cooperation with the research endeavor by the school districts. The percentages of males and females in the sample are 50.3% and 49.7% respectively, and the distribution by grade in school is 7th grade--20%, 8th grade--19%, 9th grade--19%, 10th grade--16%, l l t h grade--15%, and 12th grade--l 1%. There is no evidence that the sample is biased in underrepresenting either boys or girls or various grade levels, although seniors are slightly under-represented.

Measurement of Variables Six dimensions of religion (the independent variables) are operationally defined in this study in the following ways: (1) Religious membership refers to whether the subject indicated he or she was not or was a church member. (2) The fundamentalism-liberalism scale of relgious groups was primarily based on the traditional proscriptive nature of the denomination or the group--Latter Day Saints; Born Again; Baptist; Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and others (comprising largely smaller Protestant groups); Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, and Presbyterian; Catholic; Jewish; and none. Methodist was not included with the more proscriptive groups, as it has been in the past, as it has been a number of years now since it officially abandoned its previous proscriptive stand on the use of alcohol. 10

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(3} Church attendance was measured by checking the following categories: "never," "a few times a year," "one or two times a month," " a t least once a week," or "almost daily." {4} Importance of religion to the subject varied on a five-point scale from "not at all important" to " v e r y important." 15} A combination of church attendance and the importance of religion to the subject employed a four-point scale, and {6} A four-point scale was used to measure a combination of the fundamentalism-liberalism of religious groups and the importance of religion to the subject. These last two in the above list--{5} and {6}--were added because of the potential interaction of these variables. The eight dependent variables of substance use utilized in the major part of this study included the frequency of the use of beer, marijuana, and tobacco on a seven-point scale that ranged from "never tried" to "over 15 times in the past month"; poly-alcohol use, which measured the number of kinds of alcohol used in the past month on a scale from none to three; poly-drug use measured by the number of kinds of drugs used in the past month on a four-point scale from none to three or more; heavy use of alcohol, which combined the extent of multiple use and the frequency of use over the past month on a four-point scale; heavy use of drugs other than marijuana, which combined~the extent of multiple use and the frequency of use over the past month on a four-point scale; and a four-point scale to determine the extent to which the subject thought he or she needed help with an alcohol or drug problem. In addition to the above measures of substance use, this research study also contained measures of the frequency of use of wine and liquor as well as amphetamines and barbiturates; cocaine; LSD, PCP, and other psychedelics; and other controlled or illegal drugs. Owing to space limitations and the desire to keep the analysis of data as simple as possible while still appropriate, the above substances are excluded as single dimensions of alcohol or drug usage in this article except for amphetamines and barbiturates and cocaine, which are used in Tables 1 and 2. However, wine and liquor are included, along with beer, in the measures of poly-alcohol use and heavy alcohol use; while poly-drug use includes all of the above-mentioned drugs plus marijuana, and heavy drug use includes all of the same drugs except marijuana.

Findings The percentages in Table 1 clearly show church membership to be a deterrent to both alcohol and drug usage. Church members have a lower percentage than those who are not members for the use of all substances except one--heavy use of cocaine, where they are only one percentage point higher than those who are not church members. A more thorough comparison of alcohol and drug use for the various religious groups is presented in Table 2. As might be expected, the Church of

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the Latter Day Saints had the lowest percentage of their young people who had ever tried a substance for all substances and also had the lowest percentage of heavy users, of those who had tried a substance, for beer, where they tied with the Baptist church and the other religious groups category, made up largely of smaller Protestant groups. The lowest percentage of those who had ever tied that substance who were heavy users was the Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ for tobacco, Episcopal and Presbyterian for marijuana and amphetamines and barbiturates, and Baptist for cocaine. The general pattern presented here is that the fundamentalist type of religious groups {the most proscriptive ones} tend to be the best deterrents for using these substances in general, ranging from beer to the more serious types of drugs such as cocaine. The most proscriptive religion {Latter Day Saints} was the greatest deterrent for ever using both alcohol and drugs. But ,the picture is somewhat confusing for heavy substance use, with Episcopalian and Presbyterian {more liberal and prescriptive types of religions} ranking as the greatest deterrent for marijuana and amphetamines and barbiturates and only one percentage point away from tying with the Latter Day Saints, Baptist, and the other religious groups category {mainly composed of smaller Protestant groups} for being the greatest deterrent for heavy use of beer. Jewish youth had the highest percentage of those who had ever used a substance for marijuana, amphetamines and barbiturates, and cocaine, and were a close second--only one percentage point below the Catholic church and those with no religious membership that were tied for first--for those who had ever used beer. Jewish young people also placed first as heavy users of beer and amphetamines and barbiturates and tied for first with those who are not church members for heavy use of tobacco. Latter Day Saints was surprisingly the highest among heavy users of cocaine, and other religious groups {made up largely of smaller Protestant groups} was first for heavy use of marijuana. In order to shed more light on the intricateness of religiosity as it relates to substance use, multiple regression analysis was undertaken. First the zeroorder correlation coefficients were obtained for the various dimensions of religion and measures of substance use employed in this study. Religious groups are now arranged on a fundamentalism-liberalism scale, along with the other measures of religion, for this part of the analysis. The zero-order correlation coefficients between the six dimensions of religion and the eight measures of substance use presented in Table 3 were all in the predicted direction, supporting a relationship between religion and alcohol and drug use. Despite the fact that all of the 48 correlations were statistically significant at least at the .05 level, they were generally weak with the highest {-.19} indicating that variation in church attendance and the combination of church attendance and importance of religion to the subject each only accounts for 4% of the variation in the frequency in the use of beer by these young people. One should keep in mind that when the number of cases is large, as in this study tN -- 13,878}, a relationship may be statistically significant but not substantively significant. These correlation coefficients also show a slightly stronger relationship be-

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tween the various dimensions of religion and alcohol use than drug use, with only several exceptions. The relationship between church membership and the use of beer {-.05} is lower than that for the use of marijuana {-.07}. Also church membership and the number of kinds of alcoholic beverages used and the number of kinds of drugs other than marijuana used in the past month have identical correlation coefficients of - . 0 4 ; and church membership and heavy alcohol use and heavy drug use both have correlation coefficients of -

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The use of marijuana and harder drugs, generally considered more unconventional, has been shown in this study, as well as b y earlier research, 1, to have a weaker relationship with religion than the use of alcoholic beverages. In fact, in this study the weakest relationship with the various dimensions of religion was that of heavy drug use, while the strongest relationship was with the use of beer. This too is consistent with findings of previous research, which show that religion is most effective in controlling lesser forms of unconventional behavior such as adolescent beer drinking. 12 A stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relative importance of the six dimensions of religion in predicting alcohol and drug use. Grade in school and sex were also used, and added last each time, in order to control for their possible influence on alcohol and drug use, since previous research has shown sex and age to be related to both religious behavior and belief and substance use. 13 Standardized beta coefficients for the three most important dimensions of religion are reported for each of the eight measures of substance use in Table 4. Standardized betas {partial regression coefficients} indicate that all variables have been translated into standard measures in that all deviations from respective means have been divided b y the standard deviations. Beta provides a measure of the ability of the predictor to explain variation in the dependent variable after adjusting for the effects of all other predictors. It is useful for indicating the relative importance of several predictors. 14 The betas clearly show that the importance of religion to the subject has the most impact, being first on seven of the eight measures of alcohol and drug use and second once. Church membership is second in importance, being first once and second and third three times each. The third most important of the dimensions of religion is the fundamentalism-liberalism scale of religious groups with one second and two thirds. In Table 3 church attendance yielded the highest zero-order correlations for almost all measures of substance use, with the combination of church attendance and importance of religion second and importance of religion third. However, when the multiple regression analysis was used, which involved controlling by statistical adjustment for the influence of all other dimensions of religion, plus sex and grade in school, each time the association of one dimension of religion with each of the eight measures of substance use was explored, importance of religion to the subject comes out clearly as the most important. This is understandable, since importance of religion to the subject reflects a personal commitment to religion and the internalization of religious beliefs and values that are more likely to operate directly as deterrents to the use of alcohol and drugs.

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Religion and youth substance use.

This research study of 13,878 youths indicates that religion is not by itself a very important predictor of youth substance use. It is, however, more ...
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