Religiosity Is Associated with Reduced Risk of All-Cause and Coronary Heart Disease Mortality among Jewish Men

Sigal Eilat-Adar (), Devora Hellerstein and Uri Goldbourt
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Sigal Eilat-Adar: Healthy and Active Lifestyle Education, Academic College at Wingate, Netanya 4290200, Israel
Devora Hellerstein: School of Education, Academic College at Wingate, Netanya 4290200, Israel
Uri Goldbourt: Healthy and Active Lifestyle Education, Academic College at Wingate, Netanya 4290200, Israel

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-7

Abstract: Previous studies have found an inverse association between religiosity and mortality. However, most of these studies were carried out with Christian participants. This longitudinal study aimed to determine whether a composite variable based on self-reported religious education and religious practices is associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality in 9237 Jewish men aged 40–65 years at baseline, over a 32-year follow-up. Jewish men were characterized by their degree of religiosity, from the Ultra-Orthodox (“Haredim”)—the strictest observers of the Jewish religious rules, and in descending order: religious, traditional, secular, and agnostic. Demographic and physical assessments were made in 1963 with a 32-year follow-up. The results indicate that Haredim participants, in comparison to the agnostic participants, had lower CHD mortality. Hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI)—adjusted by age, cigarette smoking, systolic blood pressure, diabetes, socioeconomic status, BMI, and cholesterol, was: [HR = 0.68 (95% CI 0.58,0.80)] for Haredim; [HR = 0.82 (95% CI 0.69,0.96)] for religious; [HR = 0.85 (95% CI 0.73–1.00)] for traditional; and [HR = 0.92 (95% CI 0.79–01.06) for secular, respectively ( p for trend = 0.001). The same pattern was observed for total mortality. This study shows an association between religious practice among men and a decreased rate of CHD and total mortality.

Keywords: religious practice; coronary heart disease; mortality; morbidity; epidemiology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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