The collapse of religion in the US could trigger a wave of suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol-related deaths among white working-class people, a new report claims.
A study led by Wellesley College in Massachusetts found a significant increase in “deaths of despair,” or deaths from conditions such as alcoholism and opioid abuse, which can be attributed to poor mental health.
Using official death statistics and surveyed estimates of church attendance, it was found that these deaths began to rise in the 1970s – just as church attendance began to decline.
Fewer Americans attend church today than they did before the pandemic, with weekly attendance down 10 percent in recent years.
The graph above shows the death rate from suicide, drug overdose or alcohol abuse per 100,000 people (red line). It also shows the proportion of people who go to church once a week (blue line). Data is for middle-aged white adults who were not in college
The graphs above show religious affiliation in different age groups from 1979 to the early 2000s. It shows a decline in religion across the US population
Researchers, who published findings as a working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research, collected data on deaths from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and religiosity from the General Social Survey (GSS).
The GSS is a biannual survey that measures Americans by their religion and general social attitudes.
The research team examined the more than 1 million deaths from alcohol abuse, drug overdoses and suicides from the 1970s to the early 2000s in the United States.
They also looked at the proportion of Americans who attended church weekly during the same period.
The research focused on middle-aged white adults who did not go to college because despair deaths rose earlier in this group than in other populations.
“The rise in mortality was preceded by a decline in religiosity among the less educated, middle-aged white populations,” the researchers wrote.
“This shift in religious practice has been major and addresses a phenomenon known to be related to health and well-being.
‘[It was also] driven by the same group whose mortality later began to rise and occurred shortly before the mortality rise.’
This chart compares church attendance to death rates from suicide, poisoning, and drug use in 24 selected American states in the late 1970s. It shows that states with fewer church attendances had much higher rates
However, they noted that the study was observational and could not prove that less frequent church attendance led to ascension.
Other factors, such as the opioid epidemic, could be to blame.
The rate of “despair deaths” among middle-aged white adults ages 45 to 64 fell 40 percent between 1979 and 1991 and has been declining steadily.
But the decline stalled before reversing in 1995.
By the last year of the study, 2002, the rate had risen 20 percent from its lowest point, reaching levels not seen since the 1980s.
At the same time, the proportion of middle-aged American adults who attended church each week decreased.
It fell by almost half in 12 years, falling from 28 to 16 percent by 1997.
The researchers suggested that people who stopped attending church lost the “positive external benefits” of belonging to a religious community.
This may have included social support as well as feelings of camaraderie.
They also suggested that some faith groups may have collapsed as so many people stopped attending church and they could no longer support their members.
Other factors that could have driven the increase include the opioid epidemic, the researchers noted.
But they said OxyContin — one of the key drivers — only became available in America after the death rate stalled.
America’s opioid epidemic increased after 2015 and has now reached record levels in the country.
The researchers noted: “Over the past few decades, death rates from poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease have increased dramatically in the United States.
“We show that these ‘deaths of despair’ began to increase relative to the trend in the early 1990s, that this increase was preceded by a decline in religious participation, and that middle-aged white Americans drove both trends.”
They add: “Our results show that social factors such as organized religion can play an important role in understanding ‘deaths of despair’.”
They said people had started dropping out of the church because religion was more closely related to politics.
They write: “This decline was largely driven by responses to changes in the US political landscape in the 1980s, when religious and political affiliation were much more correlated than they used to be.”
The researchers added that the repeal of blue laws that banned work and commerce on Sundays also played a role.
Many were present in the mid-20th century, but most have now been removed, opening up trade and work on the traditional ‘rest day’.
Numbers suggest that America’s suicide rate increased in 2021
Data shows that an American took their own life every 10 minutes for the past year as suicide rates soared across the United States.
Statistics showed that 47,644 Americans died by suicide in 2021, up four percent from the previous 12 months and the second-highest number in the past decade.
The numbers follow a two-year decline in suicide rates.
The group most likely to take their own lives were men over the age of 75, while young men aged 18 to 24 saw the largest increase of eight percent in one year.
Experts today called the surge “disappointing” but nothing like the “major escalation” predicted when the Covid pandemic hit.
They blamed a combination of factors, including deteriorating mental health, higher gun ownership rates and job losses due to Covid, among others.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States.
The White House is currently boosting mental health services for the country with $1 billion over five years to improve service in schools and for children struggling with mental health issues in the community.
The data is preliminary, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it likely already includes nearly all of the suicides in the last year.