Shields, J. J., Broome, K. M., Delany, P. J., Fletcher, B. W., & Flynn, P. M. (2007).   Religion and substance abuse treatment:   Individual and program effects.  Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(3), 355-371.

Abstract:  Recently, the relationship between personal religiousness and substance abuse treatment outcomes has gained increased attention in the public health arena.   Utilizing the “moral community” perspective of Stark, Kent and Doyle (1982) to frame possible contextual effects of religion, we explore the degree to which personal religiousness and treatment program characteristics influence two drug treatment outcome measures – critical retention and commitment to treatment.   The data include 8,494 clients from 70 programs in the national Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Studies (DATOS).   Three research questions were addressed:   (1) what is the relationship between an individual’s level of religiosity and their retention and commitment to treatment?   (2) How does the ecological context within the treatment program shape the individual-level relationships?   (3) To what extent is program religious emphasis directly linked to outcome levels?   The findings are consistent with earlier literature showing a weak to moderate relationship overall between religiosity and treatment outcomes.   However, there was wide variation in the size of the individual level religiosity-treatment correlations across programs.   Support for the “moral community” hypothesis was mixed, as size of the correlations depended significantly on the overall religiosity of program clientele, but not on the formal religious emphasis of the programs.   Further research is needed in order to fully understand the role of religion in substance abuse treatment.