Religiosity, attitudes toward science, and public health: evidence from Finland

Ioannis Laliotis, Evangelos Mourelatos and Joona Lohtander

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We explore how religiosity influences perceptions and the adoption of protective health behaviours, as reflected in COVID-19 infection and vaccination rates. In the first part of our analysis, we use Finnish data from four nationally representative surveys, we find that individuals with higher self-reported religiosity and those from more conservative religious groups tend to hold less favourable attitudes towards science, technology and medicine, compared to non-religious individuals. In the second part, we observe that municipalities with higher shares of conservative religious groups experienced greater COVID-19 spread and lower vaccination rates, with these trends persisting throughout the pandemic. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for religiosity when crafting public health policies, as it may contribute to the existence of non-compliance hotspots.

Keywords: Covid-19; Finland; religion; religiosity; coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 I10 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2025-02-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Published in Economics and Human Biology, 28, February, 2025, 56. ISSN: 1570-677X

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