ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the link between religion, health, and death anxiety. The first part of the chapter focuses on a body of research that links religiosity with health outcomes, both positive and negative, and the mechanisms through which religiosity influences health. An investigation of the inverse relationship between religiosity and health then follows. The second portion of the chapter focuses on the relationship between religion and death anxiety. While the literatures are mixed with respect to the findings, the chapter delves into the different processes involved in the religiosity-death anxiety relationship. The chapter examines how a person’s sense of control serves as a mediating factor in the religiosity–death anxiety relationship, how different types of religiosity shape death anxiety, and how people’s belief in the afterlife affects their death anxiety level.
