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Parental Spiritual and Religious Beliefs and Behaviour Data Collected from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

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Parental Spiritual and Religious Beliefs and Behaviour Data Collected from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6:175 Last updated: 01 SEP 2021 DATA NOTE Parental spiritual and religious beliefs and behaviour data collected from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, 2020 [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review] Yasmin Iles-Caven , Steven Gregory , Iain Bickerstaffe , Kate Northstone , Jean Golding Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, BS8 2BN, UK v1 First published: 07 Jul 2021, 6:175 Open Peer Review https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17010.1 Latest published: 07 Jul 2021, 6:175 https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17010.1 Reviewer Status AWAITING PEER REVIEW Any reports and responses or comments on the Abstract article can be found at the end of the article. There are few studies that chart the ways in which the religious beliefs and practices of parents and their offspring vary over time. Even fewer can relate this to aspects of their physical and mental health or distinguish the different facets of the environment that may have influenced the development or loss of religious/spiritual belief and behaviours over time. This paper describes the recent data collection in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) on the beliefs and behaviours of the study parents some 27-28 years after the first measures were collected. Questions that were previously administered to the mother and her partner on religion, spirituality, behaviours, and beliefs (RSBB) were repeated for the fourth time, together with enhanced data on RSBB. The new data are described and compared with previous responses. The most notable difference between the 9 year and the 2020 sweep was the increase of professed non-believers in both the mothers (17.5% vs 29.8%) and partners (31.9% vs. 45.3%). As expected, on each occasion study partners were less likely to acknowledge RSBB compared to the study mothers. In the latest sweep, respondents were less likely to be unsure if they believed and more likely to not believe. Responses to “Do you believe in God or a divine power?” in mothers ranged from 49.9% stating ‘yes’ antenatally to 43.5% doing so in 2020; 14.9% vs 29.8% for ‘no’ and 35.2% to 26.6% for ‘not sure’. For partners, the corresponding figures are: ‘yes’ 37.0% vs. 30.0%; ‘no’ 28.6% vs. 45.3% and ‘not sure’ 34.5% vs. 24.6%. We plan to undertake detailed analyses of the antecedents and consequences of RBSS. All data are available for use by interested researchers. Keywords Religious belief, spirituality, religiosity, behaviour, ALSPAC, parent, sex differences, trends with age. Page 1 of 20 Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6:175 Last updated: 01 SEP 2021 This article is included in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) gateway. Corresponding author: Yasmin Iles-Caven ([email protected]) Author roles: Iles-Caven Y: Funding Acquisition, Project Administration, Resources, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing; Gregory S: Formal Analysis, Validation, Writing – Review & Editing; Bickerstaffe I: Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing; Northstone K: Data Curation, Funding Acquisition, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing; Golding J: Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. Grant information: The work was supported by the Wellcome Trust through core support to ALSPAC [217065, https://doi.org/10.35802/217065]]. The UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust [217065] and the University of Bristol provide core support for ALSPAC. This publication is the work of the authors, Yasmin Iles-Caven and Jean Golding will serve as guarantors for the contents of this paper. A comprehensive list of grants funding is available on the ALSPAC website. This data collection was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation [61356]. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of this manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Copyright: © 2021 Iles-Caven Y et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. How to cite this article: Iles-Caven Y, Gregory S, Bickerstaffe I et al. Parental spiritual and religious beliefs and behaviour data collected from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, 2020 [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review] Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6:175 https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17010.1 First published: 07 Jul 2021, 6:175 https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17010.1 Page 2 of 20 Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6:175 Last updated: 01 SEP 2021 Introduction non-believers and a small reduction in professed belief were There is increasing evidence that Western populations are apparent. becoming increasingly secular with each new generation (e.g., Chaves, 2017; Iles-Caven et al., 2019; Office of National Statistics, Materials and methods 2012; The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2017). Participants For example, the British Social Attitudes Survey (Curtice The ALSPAC survey was specifically designed to determine et al., 2019) has demonstrated a dramatic decline, between 1983 ways in which the individual’s genotype combines with envi- and 2018, in those with no religion (31% to 52%, respectively); ronmental pressures to influence health and development identification with a Christian denomination (66% vs. 38%) and [Golding et al., 2001]. The study is geographically based in the a steady increase in non-Christian beliefs (2% vs. 9%). Those south-west of England, centred around the city of Bristol and who identified as being very or extremely religious remained its surrounding rural and semi-urban areas, with a population similar (6% vs. 7%) but those stating they were extremely, or very of about 1 million. To capture as much valid information as pos- non-religious increased from 14% in 1983 to 33% in 2018. sible, unbiased by knowledge of details of the characteristics of Those who professed they had never believed in God rose from the baby, the study was designed to start as early in pregnancy 13% to 26%. Among the younger generations particularly, as possible. All women resident in the area at the time they there was an increased tolerance towards different religious or were pregnant were eligible, provided that their expected belief systems, including non-belief. At every age, more date of delivery lay between 1st April 1991 and 31st December women than men were affiliated with a religion, believed in 1992. In total, 14,541 pregnant mothers, resident in the area, were God, and attended religious services. These findings echo those recruited into the ALSPAC study. From these pregnancies, found in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children there were a total of 14,676 fetuses and 14,062 live births. Of (ALSPAC) over time (Iles-Caven et al., 2019). the children, 13,988 were still alive at 1 year of age. Mothers were considered enrolled if they had returned at least one Evidence, mainly from cross-sectional studies, has shown asso- questionnaire or attended a “Children in Focus” clinic by 19th ciations between religious/spiritual belief and positive health July 1999. At the age of 7 years, the study team reached out to outcomes. These are described in brief elsewhere (Iles-Caven eligible mothers who had not been included in the study previously et al., 2019). Nevertheless, definitive proof of causal conse- and thus recruited additional families to boost the number of quences of belief is lacking. Any study designed to identify participants. As such, from the age of 7 the total sample number whether some aspect of religious/spiritual beliefs or behaviours is 15,454 live births, resulting in 15,589 fetuses, of which (RSBB) affects physical or mental health must analyse data 14,901 were alive at 1 year of age (Boyd et al., 2013; Fraser longitudinally (i.e., by identifying beliefs first and determining et al., 2013). their relationships with subsequent aspects of health). In addi- tion, it is also important to have information collected longi- Following advice from the ALSPAC Ethics and Law tudinally on factors that may be confounders, moderators, or Committee, partners were recruited into the study only if the mediators. To this end, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents mothers wished them to be included. Questionnaires were and Children (ALSPAC) received funding to enhance the data sent to the mother who then passed the questionnaire on to the resource on the topic of RSBB in 2020, which will be partner with a separate pre-paid return envelope. This method analysed along with extensive additional data on potential meant that ALSPAC were unable to follow up or communi- mediators, moderators, confounders, and physical and mental cate directly with the partners (Birmingham, 2018; Fraser health outcomes to be collected over the next two years. et al., 2013). Therefore, the numbers of partners’ questionnaires returned were less than those received from the mothers. This paper describes the RSBB data collected in 2020 from the Around 75% of partners participated in the study. Partners were parents enrolled ALSPAC. These questions were designed to subsequentlyenrolled in their own right in 2010 (n=3000). enable linkage to other longitudinal data from the cohort on the environment, traumatic incidents, physical and mental health, A detailed data dictionary on the study web pages, and a and genetic background.
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