祈りに治療効果があると思っている米国人

米国ではわりと安定して「祈りに治療効果がある」と信じられている。1998年に80%が祈りに治療効果があると信じていた。

[CBS Poll: Prayer Can Heal (1998/04/29) on CBSnews]

                                 YES      NO
Does Prayer Help Healing?         80%     14%
Should Doctors Pray If Asked?     63%     25%
Should Prayer Be Standard?        34%     55%

This poll was conducted among a nation-wide random sample of 825 adults, interviewed by telephone April 20-22, 1998. The error due to sampling could be plus or minus three percentage points for results based on the entire sample.

そして2011年になっても、ほとんどと違いが見られない。

[Foxnews Poll: Creationism]

29. Do you personally believe prayers can literally help someone heal from an injury or illness, or
don’t you believe that?

                   　　　　　　　　Tea                   Non-  College No
         Total   Dem   Rep   Ind Party   Men Women White white Degree  College
Yes        77%   72%   83%   78%   84%   71%   82%   74%   83%   73%    80%
No         20%   25%   15%   16%   14%   25%   15%   22%   13%   23%    17%
(Don'tknow) 3%    3%    2%    5%    3%    4%    3%    3%    3%    4%     3%

               Under                     Under
         Total Age35 35-54   55+   65+    $50k  $50k+   Lib  Mod  Cons
Yes        77%   71%   79%   78%   81%     82%    72%   65%  78%   85%
No         20%   26%   19%   17%   16%     14%    25%   32%  16%   12%
(Don'tknow) 3%    3%    2%    5%    3%      3%     2%    3%   6%    3%

[Dana Blanton: "Fox News Poll: Most Believe Prayer Heals, 45 Percent Believe in Creationism" (2011/09/07) on Foxnews]

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 911 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from August 29 to August 31. For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

共和党支持・女性・非白人・低学歴・高齢・低収入・保守の方が少しYESが多いが、それほど大きく違うわけではない。

なお、信仰療法のみに頼っている人は多いわけではない（死亡事件が起きると目立って報道される程度）ので、「祈りに治療効果がある」と信じていることが、信仰療法の広がる原因となっているわけではないと思われる。