Religious people coped better with Covid pandemic: Study

People of religious faith may have experienced lower levels of unhappiness and stress than others during the Covid19 pandemic induced lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 claims new researchEconomists at the University of Cambridge UK argue that religion may act as a bulwark against increased distress and reduced wellbeing during times of crisis such as a global public health emergencyThey found that while lockdowns were associated with a universal uptick in unhappiness the average increase in feeling miserable was 29 per cent lower for people who described themselves as belonging to a religionSelection biases make the wellbeing effects of religion difficult to study said Prof Shaun Larcom from Cambridgersquos Department of Land EconomyPeople may become religious due to family backgrounds innate traits or to cope with new or existing strugglesHowever the Covid19 pandemic was an extraordinary event affecting everyone at around the same time so we could gauge the impact of a negative shock to wellbeing right across society This provided a unique opportunity to measure whether religion was important for how some people deal with a crisisThe team analysed survey data collected from 3884 people in the UK during the first two national lockdowns and compared it to three waves of data prior to the pandemicThe researchers also analysed the data by religiosity the extent of an individualrsquos commitment to religious beliefs and how central it is to their lifeThose for whom religion makes some or a great difference in their lives experienced around half the increase in unhappiness seen in those for whom religion makes little or no difference The study suggests that it is not just being religious but the intensity of religiosity that is important when coping with a crisis said LarcomThe research is published as a working paper by Cambridges Faculty of Economics The team also found the probability of religious people having an increase in depression was around 20 per cent lower than nonreligious peopleThere was little overall difference between Christians Muslims and Hindus followers of the three biggest religions in the UKHowever the team did find that wellbeing among some religious groups appeared to suffer more than others when places of worship were closed during the first lockdownThe denial of weekly communal attendance appears to have been particularly affecting Catholics and Muslims said LarcomThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever