 Religion, Covid-19 and mental healthGirish Bahal, Sriya Iyer, Kishen Shastry and Anand Shrivastava European Economic Review, 2023, vol. 160, issue C Abstract: Covid-19 and the resulting lockdowns affected various aspects of people’s lives, including their mental health. Using data from an online survey, we investigate the role of religiosity in mediating the effect of Covid-19 on mental health. From February-March 2021, we conducted online surveys in the USA among 5178 individuals. These surveys elicited responses on (i) the incidence of Covid-19 infections among the respondents or their immediate social networks, (ii) religious beliefs and practices, and (iii) mental health. Employing the CES-D scale, which tests for depression in clinical settings, we find that while the incidence of a Covid-19 infection is associated with significantly worse mental health, this negative association is significantly smaller for religious people. We show that the mental health benefits of being religious emanate from the ability to participate in religious activities. Keywords: Mental Health; Social networks; Covid-19; Pandemics; Religion (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:160:y:2023:i:c:s0014292123002490 DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104621 Access Statistics for this article European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier |
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