title: Religion as a cultural phenomenon, and national mortality rates from heart disease.
abstract: An hypothesis is developed which proposes that mortality rates from heart disease are a function of a nation's dominant religious tradition, with predominantly Catholic countries having lower rates than the more Protestant countries. The hypothesis was tested on data from 24 economically developed Western countries. A significant inverse relationship of -0.588 was found between the proportion of Catholics in the 24 nations and mortality rates from heart disease, which supports the hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Watson
mesh_terms: D002410:Catholicism; D002835:Christianity; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D013997:Time Factors; D014434:Type A Personality