Famed atheist Christopher Hitchens once wrote a book with the subtitle "how religion poisons everything," but a new Gallup polling analysis has found the opposite to be true, in that very religious people enjoy higher levels of well-being than others.
The poll was conducted by Gallup on over 550, 000 Americans, where at least a 1000 a night would be interviewed about indicators of well being and about levels of religiosity. The factors measured ranged from physical and emotional health to self-evaluations of life to perceptions of work environments.
The analysis controlled for other factors that typically influence levels of religiosity, including age, gender, race and ethnicity, region, state, socioeconomic status, marital status and child-bearing status.
Essentially, Gallup found that Americans who stated that religion is a vital part of their everyday life and who attend religious services roughly once a week or more scored an average of 68.7 on their well-being index, as compared to those who are moderately religious or nonreligious, who only scored an average of 64.2.
Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport says that even such as small difference is significant.
"It's not like some people score zero and others score 100," Newport told CNN.com. "So when we find a difference of four of five points it's not only statistically significant, it's also substantively significant."
The survey did not measure whether religiosity was the source behind well being or vice versa, but Newport speculated that religiosity was the likely driver.
"All religions have different mechanisms that would plausibly lead to higher well-being, including social networks and ways of dealing with stress, but we can't prove that," he said. "It is possible that people with higher levels of well-being choose to be religious."
According to Gallup surveys, 44 percent of Americans are very religious, 30 percent are nonreligious and 27 percent are moderately religious.