Wall Street Journal Essay, Is Religion Good for Your Health?:, by David DeSteno (Northeastern; Host, How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality):

Is religion a medicine for what ails us? If we’re talking about physical and mental health, the answer has been difficult to come by. Large-scale studies have consistently shown a strong association between being religious and good health. For example, a paper published by Mayo Clinic researchers in 2001 found that people who regularly attend religious services tend to have lower rates of mortality and hospital admissions in any given period, as well as better cardiovascular function. The increase in death rates among people who never attend religious services compared with those who attend several times a week is comparable to that associated with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Yet it is difficult to know for certain whether these differences are due to religious observance itself or some related factor. … Ambiguities like these muddy any strong claims about the health benefits of religion. Given research showing that a majority of Americans (including a majority of family physicians) believe that religion can heal, and that 77% of hospitalized patients ask physicians to consider their spiritual needs, this debate isn’t just theoretical. Nearly 30 medical schools offer courses on religion, spirituality and health, despite strenuous criticism from many medical professionals.

The only way to resolve the question is with more rigorous research. … Several recent studies led by Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele do exactly this.

In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2016, using data from over 70,000 women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study from 1992 to 2012, VanderWeele and colleagues found that those who attended religious services at least once a week had 33% lower mortality, from any cause, over a 16-year period. In particular, deaths due to cancer or cardiovascular disease were 75% the rate among non-attenders. While religion-associated reductions in smoking and increases in social support explained some of the benefit, the data suggested that religion worked through other, as yet unexplained, avenues too.

VanderWeele’s team found a similar benefit when it came to suicide risk. Among the nurses, attending services at least once a week or more cut the suicide rate by 80%, even when controlling for diagnoses of depression, cancer and cardiovascular disease. …

Using data from other large-scale, longitudinal studies, VanderWeele found that religiosity improves mental health. …

Ongoing surveys like these, as well as more targeted studies, show a strong link between religion and better physical and mental health. … [I]t’s time for health sciences to take religion seriously and consider what it offers the body and mind. …

There’s much yet to learn about how religious practice can affect our physiology. But if we’re not willing to accept the data, we won’t be able to identify the tools it uses to heal, some of which might well be separable from specific theological beliefs.