Hilton, Fellingham, and Lyon published a landmark study in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2002. They examined every male death record in Utah over a five-year period (1991-1995) — 27,738 deaths total, with 15,555 linked to LDS membership records.
Using active LDS men as the baseline (1.0x), the findings were:
Less-active LDS men had self-deletion rates 3.28x to 7.64x higher, peaking at ages 25-29. Non-LDS Utah men had rates 3.43x to 6.27x higher, peaking at ages 20-24.
This represents one of the largest protective effects documented in the mental health literature. The study was published in one of the most respected epidemiology journals in the world and used objective death records rather than self-reported survey data.
The study measured Utah residents only, and religious commitment was assessed through priesthood office records. Despite these limitations, the magnitude of the protective effect — consistently 3x to 6x across age groups — is difficult to attribute to confounding factors alone.
Discussion