Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that religious and scientific beliefs can have dramatic implications for public health, since they shape social and psychological responses including adherence to health directives and mental health. Our lab recently collected extensive data on the experience of over 1,000 American Jews during the pandemic including their scientific and religious beliefs, levels of COVID-19 exposure, adherence to health directives, and mental health. We have published some initial results (Pirutinsky, Cherniak, & Rosmarin, 2020), but most of the data remain unanalyzed. We will examine effects of religious and scientific beliefs on responses to COVID-19 in the

underrepresented and diverse cultural context of American Jews. Notably, the Jewish community is bound by similar culture yet highly diverse in its religiosity, providing a unique culturally-controlled context to examine religion and health. We will examine how trust in God and religious leaders (especially regarding health), and trust in elected officials, scientists, and medical professionals, as well as the multiplicative interaction of these factors, predicts behavioral and emotional responses to the pandemic (e.g., compliance with health directives, anxiety, depression, wellbeing). Ultimately, our project will promote dialogue on sociocultural narratives about science and religion with rich scientific data, which will foster scientific and public discourse about these pertinent matters. We request support from the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS) to conduct statistical analyses and disseminate our findings within academic and by outreach efforts to the world at large.