Mastery and self-rated health during the COVID-19 pandemic : exploring contingencies by gender and race.

Research suggests that persons with higher levels of mastery may have better self-rated health than those with lower levels of mastery. This research aims to address the following two questions: Does mastery hold a favorable association with self-rated health roughly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic? Does any such relationship vary by gender or race? Data for this study comes from the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS), Wave 6, a study of adults in the United States collected from January to March of 2021. Results suggest that higher levels of mastery are linked with higher self-rated health scores, and this association was stronger among male and White respondents. The implications of these findings are discussed, and several directions for future research are set forth.