person who comes to church during three out of eight weekends. Attendance by country The frequency at which Christians attend church services varies greatly around the world. In some countries weekly attendance at religious services is common among Christians, while in others weekly attendance is rare. The following attendance statistics are mostly based on self-reporting surveys and may not accurately reflect real attendance figures. The following church attendance statistics are taken from the 2004 Gallup report, based on self-reporting telephone surveys. However, it is unclear whether the survey was solely of Christians in the respective country or the entire population (including non-Christians). A study by the European Social Survey conducted in 2008 found these rates of respondents never attending religious service (excluding special occasions): Attendance by U.S. state The frequency by which adults attend church services also vary on a state-by-state basis in the United States. Demographics The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that women are generally more religious than men, yet the gender gap is greater for Christians than Muslims. Pew Research Center data in 53 countries, found that 53% of Christian women and 46% of Christian men say they attend services at least once a week. While Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services. Church attendance remains stronger among older demographics, and more common for women in the West. There is evidence that links church attendance with health benefits. The Pew Research Center, which conducts the extensive research and information program Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, has linked regular church attendance with happiness. Several studies associated church attendance with decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Research by Rita W. Law and David A. Sbarra demonstrated that "church attendance was found to have a protective effect against the emergence of mood problems among older adults." Graham et al. discovered that "consistent pattern of lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures among frequent church attenders was found compared to that of infrequent attenders which was not due to the effects of age, obesity, cigarette smoking, or socioeconomic status." Oman D et al. found that "infrequent (never or less than weekly) attenders had significantly higher rates of circulatory, cancer, digestive, and respiratory mortality (p < 0.05), but not mortality due to external causes." With respect to students, Glanville et al. found "that religious attendance promotes