Religious switching is not limited to the young. Nearly three in 10 older adults made a major change in spiritual homes within just an 11-year period, according to a study. The findings and related research indicate both why it is important for older adults to be in a supportive congregation and why leaving a long-established spiritual community late in life could jeopardize the individual’s well-being.

Date-setting for the end of the world has never worked out too well for biblical prophets. Some social scientists, however, say increasingly sophisticated demographic tools can provide vauable insight into the future of religion. Under one scenario for the U.S., Hispanic Catholics and non-Christian religions will be big winners, while predominantly white religious groups will lag behind. Other researchers, however, are skeptical of such attempts to predict the future.

One of the goods emerging from the debate over health care in the United States is all the healthy information emerging amid the often polarizing political rhetoric.Research on religion and well-being can play a key role in the conversation on public and private health issues. Some new research sheds light on mortality rates and religion, where religious consumers turn to in moments of crisis and the growing number of Americans unaffiliated with religion who say they want their funeral to be a secular affair.