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Effect of religious service attendance on mortality and hospitalisations among Danish men and women: longitudinal findings from REGLINK-SHAREDK

  • MORTALITY
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Abstract

Research suggests a protective effect of religious service attendance on various health outcomes. However, most research has been done in religious societies, raising the question of whether these associations are also prominent in secular cultures. Here we examine mortality and hospitalisations by religious service attendance among men and women in a secular society. We performed a cohort study including 2987 Danes aged 40+ interviewed in SHARE from 2004 to 2007 and followed up in the Danish registries until 2018. We used Cox regressions and negative binomial regressions to examine associations, including interactions with sex and adjusting for age, wave, socioeconomic factors, lifestyle factors, body mass index, and history of diseases. Overall, 5.0% of men and 6.6% of women reported that they had taken part in a religious organisation within the last month. Among 848 deaths, we found lower mortality for people who attended religious services (hazard ratio (HR) 0.70; 95% CI 0.50–0.99). There was evidence for an association among women (HR 0.56; 95% CI 0.35–0.89), but not among men (HR 0.95; 95% CI 0.59–1.53). In contrast, regarding hospital admissions (n = 12,010), we found lower hospitalisation rates among men who attended religious services (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.67; 95% CI 0.45–0.98), whereas no association was found among women (IRR 0.95; 95% CI 0.70–1.29). Sensitivity analyses with E-values were moderately robust. Our results contribute to the limited literature on possible health benefits of religious service attendance in secular societies, demonstrating lower mortality among women and fewer hospitalisations among men.

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Data availability

SHARE data is free of charge for scientific use globally http://www.share-project.org/data-access.html.

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Acknowledgements

This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 1 and 2 (DOIs: https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w1.600, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w2.600); see Börsch-Supan et al. for methodological details [22]. The European Commission has funded the SHARE data collection, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782, SHARE-COVID19: GA N°101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Furthermore, additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).

Funding

This research was funded by Demography of Sex Differences in Health and Survival, grant number P01 AG031719 (LJA).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, J. B. Winsløws Vej 9B, 5000, Odense, Denmark

    Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt

  2. Open Patient Data Explorative Network, Odense University Hospital, 5000, Odense, Denmark

    Sören Möller

  3. Research unit OPEN, Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, 5000, Odense, Denmark

    Sören Möller

  4. Research Unit of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, 5000, Odense, Denmark

    Niels Christian Hvidt & Tobias Anker Stripp

  5. Academy of Geriatric Cancer Research (AgeCare), Odense University Hospital, 5000, Odense, Denmark

    Niels Christian Hvidt

  6. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tyler J. VanderWeele & Tobias Anker Stripp

  7. Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tyler J. VanderWeele & Tobias Anker Stripp

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  1. Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt
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  2. Sören Möller
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  4. Tyler J. VanderWeele
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Contributions

LJA: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Visualisation, Roles/Writing—original draft. SM: Formal analysis, Methodology NCH: Supervision TJV: Supervision TKS: Roles/Writing—editing and revisions, Formal analysis, Conceptualisation, Supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was handled by SHARE (Survey of Health, Aging, and retirement in Europe). See: A., Jürges, Hendrik. The Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe – Methodology. MEA, 2005.

Consent to participate

Consent was obtained by SHARE (Survey of Health, Aging, and retirement in Europe). See: Börsch-Supan, A., Jürges, Hendrik. The Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe – Methodology. MEA, 2005.

Consent for publication

Consent was obtained by SHARE (Survey of Health, Aging, and retirement in Europe). See: Börsch-Supan, A., Jürges, Hendrik. The Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe – Methodology. MEA, 2005.

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Ahrenfeldt, L.J., Möller, S., Hvidt, N.C. et al. Effect of religious service attendance on mortality and hospitalisations among Danish men and women: longitudinal findings from REGLINK-SHAREDK. Eur J Epidemiol 38, 281–289 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-023-00964-y

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