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Religion as a cultural phenomenon, and national mortality rates from heart disease
1Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.
Psychological Reports
|October 1, 1991
Abstract:
An hypothesis is developed which proposes that mortality rates from heart disease are a function of a nation's dominant religious tradition, with predominantly Catholic countries having lower rates than the more Protestant countries. The hypothesis was tested on data from 24 economically developed Western countries. A significant inverse relationship of -0.588 was found between the proportion of Catholics in the 24 nations and mortality rates from heart disease, which supports the hypothesis.