These correlational findings do not indicate that if nonattenders start attending, and change nothing else, they will live 8 years longer. But they do indicate that as a predictor of health and longevity, religious involvement rivals smoking and exercise effects. Such findings demand explanation. Religiously orthodox Israelis eat less fat than their nonreligious compatriots. But such differences are not great enough to explain the dramatically reduced mortality in the religious kibbutzim, argued the Israeli researchers.
Social support is another variable that helps explain the faith factor.
The more than 350,000 faith communities in North America and the millions more elsewhere provide support networks for their active participants people who are there for one another when stress strikes. Moreover, religion encourages another predictor of health and longevity marriage. In the religious kibbutzim, for example, divorce is almost nonexistent. But even after controlling for gender, unhealthy behaviors, social ties, and preexisting health problems, the mortality studies find much of the mortality reduction remaining.