Introduction: The intersections of religion and vaccination became visible early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, initial pandemic data reporting associations between religiosity and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is nearly 5 years old and has methodologic limitations. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between religious service attendance, COVID-19 attitudes, and COVID-19 vaccination at the midpoint of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Methods: A survey of Vaccine Safety Datalink members, purposefully sampled by race, ethnicity, language, and pregnancy status (N=2,856), was administered from November 2022 through February 2023. Data were analyzed through weighting and multivariable logistic regression.
Results: Overall, 960 people (33%) responded; 22.8% (95% CI=15.2%, 30.3%) identified as Catholic, and 21.7% (95% CI=14.6%, 28.9%) identified as just Christian. Overall, 28.1% (95% CI=19.4%, 36.8%) reported never attending services, whereas 19.0% (95% CI=12.3%, 25.7%) attended weekly or more often. Compared with never attending services, religious service attendance weekly or more often was associated with increasing bivalent COVID-19 Omicron booster vaccine hesitancy (p<0.01) and decreasing trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccine information (p=0.033). Self-reported COVID-19 vaccination ever (AOR=0.65; 95% CI=0.23, 1.84) or any bivalent COVID-19 Omicron booster vaccination (AOR=0.36; 95% CI=0.06, 2.20) were not associated with religious service attendance weekly or more often, compared with never attending services.
Conclusions: Observed associations between religious service attendance, vaccine attitudes, and trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourage meaningfully redefining public health and faith community partnerships oriented toward COVID-19-related education and disease prevention.
Keywords: COVID-19; religion; religious service attendance; vaccine; vaccine hesitancy.
© 2025 The Author(s).