Religious affiliation and all-cause mortality: a prospective population study in middle-aged men in eastern Finland

Previous data suggest a favourable association between religion and mortality.

We investigated the association between selected religious groups and all-cause mortality in 1627 eastern Finnish men aged 42-60 years during 1984-1989 as a part of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD).

Eastern Orthodox men had a 5.1-fold (95% confidence interval [Cl: 1.98-13.3, P < 0.001) mortality as compared with Lutheran men after adjusting for main confounders. Adjustment for different sets of covariates did not affect the magnitude of relative hazard (RH) notably. Adjusted for the examination year, age, family history of coronary heart disease (CHD), and ischaemia in exercise electrocardiograms, RH was 4.4 (95% CI: 2.5-7.5, P < 0.001) and 4.7 (95% CI: 2.7-8.3, P < 0.001) after an additional adjustment for serum cholesterol, blood leucocytes, plasma fibrinogen, serum triglycerides, maximal oxygen uptake, height, and weight. With adjustment for income, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), and years of education RH for the Orthodox religion was 4.2 (95% CI: 2.4-7.3, P < 0.001) and 4.4 (95% CI: 2.5-7.7; P < 0.001) with depression, helplessness, quality of relationships, marital status and organizational participation, and 4.1 (95% CI: 2.4-7.2, P < 0.001) when adjusted for the use of tobacco and alcohol and the intensity of physical activity. After adjustment for migration because of the war the RH was 4.5 (95% CI: 1.9-10.8, P < 0.001).

Our findings indicate that mortality risk varies substantially by religious affiliation, and this variation cannot be attributed to differences in measures for a wide variety of health, behavioural, socioeconomic, biological, social, and other characteristics.