Gallup's State of The States: Important of Religion
Posted Feb 03, 2009 at 9:35 AM by Maurice Berger
An analysis of more than 350,000 interviews conducted by the Gallup organization in 2008 reports that Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas are the most religious states in the nation; Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts are the least religious states: "The large data set of interviews conducted as part of the Gallup Poll Daily tracking program in 2008 provides uniquely reliable estimates of state-level characteristics. Each sample of state residents was weighted by demographic characteristics to ensure it is representative of the state's population. There are a number of ways to measure the relative religiosity of population segments. For the current ranking, Gallup uses the responses to a straightforward question that asks: "Is religion an important part of your daily life?" The rankings are based on the percentage of each state's adult (18 and older) population that answers in the affirmative."
