The impact of childhood epilepsy diagnoses on adult religiosity

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Publication Title

Economics Bulletin

Abstract

For some patients, epileptic seizures are accompanied by surreal physical sensations and religious visions. In some cases, these seizures lead individuals to dramatically change their worldview and religious beliefs. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we build econometric models to assess how a childhood epilepsy diagnosis affects one’s religiosity as an adult. While we find no evidence that epilepsy diagnoses increase religious faith, we show that people with epilepsy are 17.7 percentage points more likely to attend religious services at least once per month.

Volume Number

44

Issue Number

2

First Page

544

Last Page

549

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS