Monday, October 01, 2007

Do Christians live longer II?


Last Friday's post prompted some good questions about the mortality rates of Christians.

One question regarded gender differences, and as shown in the above chart, taken from Hummer et al. 1999 (Demography), the difference in mortality by church attendance exists for both men and women.

The authors also run of hazard analysis, and the effect of religious attendance says significant even when controlling for demographic characteristics, health, SES measures, and social ties. (It does attenuate from 1.87 to 1.50).

A last question: Does this have any ministry implications for Christian pastors and other workers? I don't know... any ideas.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, it looks like we should urge our people not to attend church more than once a week! ;-)

Brad Wright said...

Maybe it just kills pastors, having to have extra services?