Official finding Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Elkhart and Kosciusko Counties, IN, USA · 1984

Faith Assembly mortality investigation: 40 confirmed deaths amid avoidance of medical care

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Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

religious leadership teaching spiritual healing in place of medical care, church community organized around prayer-only treatment

Organization

Faith Assembly of Wilmot, Indiana, Indiana State Board of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The public-health investigation describes a fundamentalist church whose members avoided all medical attention in favor of spiritual healing. Pregnant members received no prenatal care and delivered at home without medical assistance. The documented practice was therefore the exposure being measured, not an incidental religious identity.

Spiritual healing or treatment
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1984-06-01 · epidemiologic investigation and MMWR report

Indiana State Board of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Investigators confirmed 40 deaths among Indiana members during 1975-1982: 21 perinatal, seven infant and child, six maternal and six nonmaternal adult deaths. In Elkhart and Kosciusko Counties, estimated perinatal mortality was 48 per 1,000 compared with 18 statewide, and maternal mortality was 872 per 100,000 compared with 9 statewide.

Documented coercion mechanisms

avoidance of all medical attention in favor of spiritual healing
no prenatal care
home labor and delivery without medical assistance
religious norm against medical treatment

Cited record

Sources

official public health report epidemiologic finding Indiana State Board of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 'Perinatal and Maternal Mortality in a Religious Group, Indiana,' Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 33, no. 21 (June 1, 1984): 297-298.: The official public-health report confirms 40 deaths, describes the spiritual-healing practice, states the investigation methods and reports perinatal and maternal mortality rates with statewide comparisons and denominator limitations.
peer reviewed public health study methodology and corroboration C. Spence, T. S. Danielson and A. M. Kaunitz, 'Perinatal and maternal mortality in a religious group avoiding obstetric care,' American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 150, no. 7 (Dec. 1, 1984): 826-831, PMID 6507508.: The indexed peer-reviewed study identifies the group as Faith Assembly, verifies the death review and reports the markedly elevated maternal and perinatal mortality associated with avoiding obstetric care.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.cdc.gov/Mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000345.htm Corpus classification: official-public-health-report; evidentiary role: epidemiologic-finding. SHA-256 44d02acbe29c22fd753982b76704dfa13932f912079b53de7f0297888966dec3
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6507508/ Corpus classification: peer-reviewed-public-health-study; evidentiary role: methodology-and-corroboration. SHA-256 c4341693d455d4ab6332d876f531e3e63bf4f9c55ea6a87874ab87b8a5edd14f
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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