In short
The peer-reviewed evidence on prayer and physical health is mixed and limited. A 2009 Cochrane review of 10 randomized trials (7,646 patients) found no clear effect of intercessory prayer on death (relative risk 1.00), and the largest such trial, the STEP study (2006), found intercessory prayer did not reduce complications after cardiac bypass surgery. Studies of personal prayer and religious coping are more positive but describe association, not cause, and effects are strongest for people who are already religious. No credible study shows prayer cures illness. This page is not medical advice, and prayer is not a substitute for professional care.
- A Cochrane review of 10 trials (7,646 patients) found no clear effect of intercessory prayer on death (RR 1.00).
- The STEP trial found 30-day complications of 52% with prayer versus 51% without, a nonsignificant difference.
- Personal prayer and religious coping trend more positive, but the findings are associations, not proof of cause.
- Caveat: any measured benefit tracks public religious activity and already-religious people; prayer does not cure illness.
The peer-reviewed evidence on prayer and physical health is mixed and limited. A 2009 Cochrane review of 10 randomized trials with 7,646 patients found no clear effect of intercessory prayer on death (relative risk 1.00), and the largest such trial, the STEP study in the American Heart Journal (2006), found intercessory prayer did not reduce complications after cardiac bypass surgery. Studies of personal prayer and religious coping are more positive but describe association, not cause, and effects are strongest for people who are already religious. A 2009 meta-analysis in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics linked religiosity to 18% lower mortality, yet that benefit tracked public religious activity, not private prayer. No credible study shows prayer cures illness.
intercessory prayer had no clear effect on death (Cochrane review)
30-day complications with vs without prayer in the STEP trial
mortality tied to religiosity, but to public activity, not prayer
of US adults have ever prayed for their own healing
Key findings at a glance
| Metric | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercessory prayer effect on death (Cochrane) | RR 1.00 | 2009 | Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews |
| STEP trial: 30-day complications, prayer vs none | 52% vs 51% | 2006 | American Heart Journal |
| Religiosity and all-cause mortality | 18% lower | 2009 | Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics |
| Religion/spirituality therapy vs standard care | g = 0.52 | 2023 | Psychotherapy Research |
| US adults who ever prayed for their own healing | 78.8% | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| US adults who pray at least daily | 44% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
The bottom line: mixed and limited evidence
The highest-quality reviews conclude honestly that the evidence is equivocal. Cochrane, the gold standard for systematic reviews, pooled the randomized trials of intercessory prayer and found no clear benefit on death or general clinical state, and declined to recommend for or against the practice.
A Cochrane systematic review of intercessory prayer found no clear effect on death, with a relative risk of 1.00 (95% CI 0.74 to 1.36) across 5 studies and 3,389 participants in 2009, according to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
The Cochrane review on intercessory prayer for ill health pooled 10 randomized controlled trials covering 7,646 patients in 2009, according to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| No significant difference in general clinical state (RR 0.98, CI 0.86 to 1.11) | RR 0.98 | 2009 | Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews |
| Review recommendation for or against intercessory prayer | No recommendation | 2009 | Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews |
Intercessory prayer trials: mostly null
Intercessory prayer means praying for distant patients, often strangers, under randomized conditions. The landmark STEP trial randomized more than 1,800 cardiac bypass patients and found no benefit; if anything, being told with certainty that one was prayed for tracked slightly worse outcomes, which the authors read as performance anxiety rather than harm from prayer.
In the STEP randomized trial, 30-day complication rates were 52% for cardiac bypass patients who received intercessory prayer versus 51% for those who did not, a nonsignificant difference in 2006, according to the American Heart Journal.
The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) randomized 1,802 coronary artery bypass patients across 6 US hospitals into three groups in 2006, according to the American Heart Journal.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| STEP: complications when told with certainty prayer was received | 59% | 2006 | American Heart Journal |
| Earlier systematic review of intercessory prayer literature | Equivocal | 2007 | Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews |
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Personal prayer and coping: more positive, but association not cause
Studies of a person's own prayer and religious coping trend more positive than the intercessory trials, but they are observational or intervention studies whose benefits are largest for people who are already religious. They show association, not proof that prayer causes better health, and the direction of effect depends on the type of prayer.
A multi-level meta-analysis of 23 randomized trials found religious and spirituality-based therapy moderately more effective than standard treatment for mental health at post-treatment (Hedges g = 0.52) in 2023, according to Psychotherapy Research (Bouwhuis-van Keulen et al.).
In a nationwide US sample of 1,931 people with chronic illness, those who prayed daily or more were more likely to survive over 6 years (hazard ratio 1.48, 95% CI 1.08 to 2.03) after adjusting for depression, social support, and health behaviors in 2023, according to the Journal of Religion and Health.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christian prayer and mental health review (meditative and conversational prayer) | Mixed | 2025 | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Religion/spirituality therapy advantage at follow-up (symptoms) | g = 0.72 | 2023 | Psychotherapy Research |
| HIV cohort: praying for known others and 17-year survival | ~2x survival | 2022 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| Cancer: spiritual wellbeing and quality of life (correlations) | r = 0.36 to 0.70 | 2015 | Journal of Palliative Medicine |
Public activity vs private prayer: the distinction that matters
Where survival benefits appear in the literature, they track community religious involvement more than private prayer, which points to social and behavioral pathways rather than prayer itself. Reverse causation is a real risk: sicker people often intensify prayer, which can make private prayer look harmful when it is not.
A meta-analysis of 69 studies found religiosity and spirituality associated with roughly 18% lower all-cause mortality in initially healthy populations (combined hazard ratio 0.82, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.87) in 2009, according to Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
In 43,708 postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative, daily private spiritual activity was associated with higher cardiovascular risk (hazard ratio 1.16, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.30), a pattern the authors attributed to sicker women turning to prayer rather than prayer causing harm, in 2013, according to Annals of Epidemiology.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private prayer vs public activity for mortality | Weak/null for prayer | 2009 | Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics |
| Protective mortality effect: healthy vs already-diseased studies | 39.1% vs 22.7% | 2009 | Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics |
How different kinds of prayer relate to wellbeing
When researchers separate prayer by type, meditative and conversational prayer track better mental-health outcomes than ritual or petitionary prayer. These are cross-sectional associations, and brain-imaging work shows correlates of focused prayer, not health outcomes.
Research on prayer types found meditative prayer associated with greater existential wellbeing and colloquial (conversational) prayer with greater happiness, while ritual prayer was linked to more negative affect (Poloma and Pendleton framework), according to peer-reviewed prayer-type studies indexed on PubMed Central.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petitionary prayer and wellbeing measures | No consistent link | 2014 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| Focused prayer and brain imaging (frontal-lobe activity) | Frontal-lobe activity | 2003 | Perceptual and Motor Skills |
| Religious-based interventions for depression (meta-analysis) | 8 studies | 2022 | Journal of Affective Disorders |
How many people pray for their health
Prayer for healing is one of the most common health behaviors in America, and researchers stress that people typically pray alongside medical care, not instead of it. Daily prayer overall has been declining, and it is much lower among the youngest adults.
78.8% of US adults reported ever praying for their own healing, according to the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (published 2016) in the Journal of Religion and Health.
44% of US adults say they pray at least once a day in 2023-24, according to Pew Research Center.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| US adults who ever prayed for someone else's healing | 87.4% | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| US adults who ever asked others to pray for their health | 54.1% | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| Healing prayer used alongside, not instead of, medical care | Alongside care | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| US adults who ever took part in laying on of hands for healing | 26.1% | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| US adults who ever joined a prayer group, circle, or chain | 53.0% | 2010 | Journal of Religion and Health |
| Highly religious adults who rely a lot on prayer for major decisions | 86% | 2016 | Pew Research Center |
| US adults who say grace or pray before meals often or always | 33% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Daily prayer among US adults, 2007 to 2023-24 | 58% to 44% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| US adults ages 18 to 24 who pray daily | 27% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
How we compiled these statistics
Every figure on this page is traced to a primary source and dated to the year the data was collected. Intercessory-prayer trial results come from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the STEP trial in the American Heart Journal. Mortality and religiosity figures come from a 2009 meta-analysis in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, the Women's Health Initiative in Annals of Epidemiology, and cohort studies in the Journal of Religion and Health. Prevalence figures come from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (published in the Journal of Religion and Health) and Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, with the reliance-on-prayer figure sourced to Pew's 2016 Religion in Everyday Life report. We frame every health finding as association rather than cause, keep the mostly null intercessory-prayer trials separate from the more positive personal-prayer and coping studies, and note reverse causation where sicker people pray more. We exclude any "prayer heals or cures" language. This page is a research summary, not medical advice, and prayer is not a substitute for professional care.
This page is a research summary, not medical advice, and prayer is not a substitute for professional medical care. If you want to build a daily prayer habit, Pray Focus offers a free library of prayers by topic, including comfort, healing, and anxiety, plus a free prayer generator, so you can pray alongside the care you receive.
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Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health (Roberts et al.)
- American Heart Journal, STEP trial of intercessory prayer (Benson et al., 2006)
- Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Religiosity/spirituality and mortality meta-analysis (Chida et al., 2009)
- Pew Research Center, Prayer and Other Religious Practices (2023-24 Religious Landscape Study)
- Journal of Religion and Health, Prevalence of healing prayer (Levin, 2010 Baylor Religion Survey)
- Psychotherapy Research, Religious and spirituality-based therapy meta-analysis (Bouwhuis-van Keulen et al., 2023)
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