ArticleJournal of economic behavior & organization2021
In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Journal of economic behavior & organization, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Driving the Consumer Adoption of Halal Cosmetics: A Systematic Review Using PRISMA and TCCM Framework.Journal of cosmetic dermatology · 2025Pooled it
- The convergent neuroscience of Christian prayer and attachment relationships in the context of mental health: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- An examination of the relationship between risk perceptions, cultural-religious beliefs and coping during COVID-19 pandemic control in South Asian countries: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2024Pooled it
- A meta-analytic review of the associations between dimensions of religious coping and psychological symptoms during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Ethno-Racial Disparities in COVID-Related Stress and Mental Health Problems: Bridging Fundamental Cause Theory and the Stress Process Model.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Moral Injury in Gaza: The Impact on Healthcare Professionals.Health science reports · 2026Article
- The longitudinal associations of material security and belief in God in young Americans.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Bridging Faith and Health: The Role of Muslim Religious Leaders in Disseminating COVID-19 Information in Norway.Journal of religion and health · 2025Article
- Coping strategies of COVID-19 recovered patients at the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre.PloS one · 2025Article
- The rise and fall of religion: An agent-based model of secularisation, security and prosociality.PloS one · 2025Article
- The contribution of socio-demographic, health-related and psychological factors to the perception of changes in life following a few waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.Health psychology report · 2025Article
- Article
- Frequency of Private Prayer Predicts Survival Over 6 Years in a Nationwide U.S. Sample of Individuals with a Chronic Illness.Journal of religion and health · 2024Article
- The role of spirituality, religiosity, and self-care on infection preventionist well-being: Results from a national survey in the United States.American journal of infection control · 2024Article
- "God is in Control": Religious Coping in Sermons About the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Reformed Church in Zambia.Journal of religion and health · 2024Article
- Factors associated with burnout among healthcare providers in a rural context, South Africa.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2024Article
- Spirituality and anxiety in pastoral care workers and physicians in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Medicine for the soul: (Non)religious identity, coping, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2024Article
- Vaccine Refusal and Hesitancy among Iranians Participated in the National COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Survey: A Qualitative Study.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2024Article
- Evaluation of experiences of the patients discharged from the COVID-19 intensive care unit: a qualitative research.Scientific reports · 2023Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1, 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.