The purpose of the present investigation is to examine the relationship between religion and health, both mental and physical, by conducting a systematic review. The relationship between the two variables is explored by splitting the various ways in which both religion and health is measured. It is recognized that researchers generally measure religion by four different traditions. Religion is measured by asking respondents to indicate their religious denomination, how often they participate in public religious activities, how often they participate in private religious activities, and more recently, through multi-dimensional motivational measures. Similarly, the concepts of mental health and physical health can be split into separate conditions. For instance, mental health can include both negative constructs (i.e., anxiety and depression) and the positive
constructs (i.e., subjective well-being), whereas; physical health can include any physical illness (i.e., cancer, hypertension, heart disease, and mortality).
The areas outlined above are examined separately and assessed using an objective and systematic strategy, to deduce whether or not a relationship potentially exists. Over the years a large numbers of researchers have conducted reviews on the area, with the most recent review, conducted by Koenig, McCullough, and Larson (2001) being seen to be the most extensive and comprehensive. The present thesis examines the research cited by Koenig, McCullough, and Larson (2001) on the areas highlighted above and perform a
systematic review utilizing A-Levels-of-Evidence strategy. A-Levels-of-Evidence
approach has been utilized recently, i.e., Powell, Shahabi, and Thoresen, (2003), on facets of physical health. A findings from the systematic review process are discussed.