The role of religion and politics in the responses to the coronavirus pandemic raises the question of their influence on the risk of other diseases. This study focuses on age-adjusted death rates of cancer, heart disease, and infant mortality per 1000 live births before the pandemic (2018-2019) and COVID-19 in 2020-2021. Seven hypothesized predictors of health effects were analyzed by examining their correlation to age-adjusted death rates among U.S. states – percent who pray once or more daily, Republican influence on state health policies as indicated by the percentage vote for Trump in 2016, median family income divided by a cost-of-living index, the Gini income inequality index, urban concentration of the population, physicians per capita, and public health expenditures per capita. Since many people practice religion independent of formal ceremonies, the percentage of people who claim to pray daily in each state was used as an indicator of potential religious influence. All of the death rates were higher in states where more people claim to pray daily and where Trump received a larger percentage of the vote. The rates were consistently lower in states where public health expenditures were higher. Only COVID-19 was correlated to physicians per capita, lower where there were more physicians. Corrected statistically for the other factors, income per cost of living explains no variance. Heart disease and COVID-19 death rates were higher in areas with more income inequality.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study did not receive any funding.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The study used (or will use) ONLY openly available human data that were originally located at: Daily Prayer, Pew Research Center, Lipka and Wormald, 2016 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/29/how-religious-is-your-state/?state=alabama Trump Vote 2016CNN, 2016 https://www.statista.com/statistics/630799/preliminary-results-of-the-2016-presidential-election/ Median Family Income/cost of living Moneyrates.com, 2019. https://www-statista-com.yale.idm.oclc.org/statistics/226377/most-affordable-states-in-the-us/ Income Inequality (Gini) U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 Physicians Per population National Center for Health Statistics, 2019. https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2019.B19083?q=gini%20&g=010XX00US$0400000&tp=true&tid=ACSDT1Y2019.B19083 Percent Urban U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States Unemployment U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016 . https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/laus_11182016.pdf Public Health Expenditures Per PopulationNational Association of County and City Health Officials, 2019. https://www.naccho.org/uploads/downloadable-resources/Programs/Public-Health-Infrastructure/NACCHO_2019_Profile_final.pdf Age-adjusted Mortality Rates National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, 2018-2021 https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data-portal/mortality/table?cod=247&cod_options=cod_15&ratetype=*&ratetype_options=ratetype_2&race=00&race_options=race_6&sex=0&sex_options=sex_3&age=001&age_options=age_11&ruralurban=0&ruralurban_options=ruralurban_3&yeargroup=5&yeargroup_options=yearmort_2&statefips=00&statefips_options=area_states&county=01000&county_options=counties_alabama&comparison=counties_to_us&comparison_options=comparison_state&radio_comparison=areas&radio_comparison_options=cods_or_areas Infant Mortality Rate National Center for Health Statistics, 2018-2019 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/infant_mortality_rates/infant_mortality.htm

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All data produced are available online at the referenced sources.