Very religious exhibit higher well-being

PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. adults who say they are very religious have higher overall well-being than their counterparts who are moderately religious, a survey indicates.

For this analysis by Gallup, Americans' degree of religiousness is based on responses to two questions asking about the importance of religion and church attendance.

The very religious are defined as those to whom religion is an important part of daily life and attend church, synagogue or mosque services at least every week or almost every week.

The moderately religious do not fall into the very religious or non-religious groups but gave valid responses on both religion questions. The non-religious say religion is not an important part of daily life and seldom or never attend church, synagogue or mosque services.

Jews have the highest well-being of any of the faith groups, followed by atheists/agnostics, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims and Protestants. However, 55 percent of U.S. Jews were classified as non-religious and 16 percent say they were very religious.

This suggests a well-being benefit to the church-, synagogue- and mosque-going experience that is independent of religious faith, but may capitalize on the social aspects of attending services, Gallup officials say.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index research is based on an analysis of more than 372,000 interviews conducted Jan. 2, 2009, to July 28, 2010. The margin of error is 5 percentage points to 6 percentage points.