Functional limitations and religious service attendance in later life: Barrier and/or benefit mechanism?

Objectives. Why do some studies report a negative relationship between reli gious service attendance and functional limitations? Two possible mechanism s. the health benefit mechanism and the functional barrier mechanism. were Systematically examined. Methods. With 2 waves of a national probability sample of adults aged 60 ye ars and older. this research used structural equation models to estimate th e influence of these 2 mechanisms. Results. Results indicated that functional limitations were associated with less frequent religious service attendance at the same wave, largely becau se of the barrier mechanism; no support was found for the benefit mechanism . Neither mechanism was significant over time. Discussion. Findings suggest that there is a temporal and salient decline i n social activities such as religious service attendance when lower body fu nctional limitations are highest. However, long-term engagement in religiou s service attendance is not predicted by baseline functional limitations. i ndicating that there are not long-term declines in attendance because of hi gher levels of functional limitations.