A new study reveals that deaths from overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related diseases among middle-aged white Americans without college degrees began rising in the 1980s, coinciding with declining church attendance. This trend predates the opioid crisis, suggesting broader social factors at play. Researchers argue that the loss of religious participation may have contributed to these mortality increases.
The research, published in the Journal of the European Economic Association, analyzed data from the General Social Surveys on religious involvement and mortality records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It focused on white, middle-aged adults lacking a college education, a group that saw concentrated drops in church attendance from 1985 to 2000. During this period, states with the steepest declines in religious participation experienced the largest upticks in so-called "deaths of despair."
This pattern emerged well before the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, which fueled the opioid epidemic. Mortality rates from these causes had been falling from the late 1970s through the early 1990s but stalled around the time churchgoing waned. "What we see in this study is the beginning of the story, before opioids became a major issue, and it shows rises in deaths of despair were already beginning to happen when the opioid crisis hit," said Tamar Oostrom, an assistant professor of economics at The Ohio State University and co-author of the study, alongside Tyler Giles of Wellesley College and Daniel Hungerman of the University of Notre Dame.
To bolster their analysis, the team examined the repeal of "blue laws," which once limited Sunday business operations and potentially encouraged church attendance. In 1985, states like Minnesota, South Carolina, and Texas abolished these restrictions, resulting in a 5- to 10-percentage-point drop in weekly religious service attendance. Those areas later reported higher rates of deaths of despair, a trend observed across genders and in both rural and urban settings.
The study suggests that reduced churchgoing may erode social ties and a sense of identity, beyond mere socialization. "Religion may provide some way of making sense of the world, some sense of identity in relation to others, that can't easily be replaced by other forms of socialization," Oostrom explained. Notably, self-identified religiosity held steady, but actual participation fell.
While opioids exacerbated the issue—"OxyContin and the opioid crisis made a bad situation worse," per Oostrom—the findings highlight the need for community engagement to address ongoing mortality trends. However, the authors express pessimism about reversals, citing persistent declines in participation and the rise of social media as barriers.