Mortality among Lutheran Clergymen

Most studies and statistics of mortality in the clerical profession have shown that clergymen have a lower mortality than males in the general population, or males in medical and legal professions, that mortality among clergymen differs by faith and denomination, marital status, ministerial specialty and age and cause of death, and that the mortality of British clergymen was nearly constant from 1910 to 1953, though a general downward trend was seen for lawyers, physicians and teachers.l These considerations led to several mortality studies of ministers, with the primary purpose of systematically examining mortality risks and specific causes of death in the clerical profession. The first in a series of such investigations is reported in this paper.