AbstractAn issue that has not yet been explored in the religiosity‐health literature is the macro‐level effect of religiosity on health—the effect of the religiosity of a society on the absolute health of the population of that society as a whole. We address this issue using two panel datasets: The first is a time‐series cross‐sectional panel dataset for 17 countries from 1925 to 2000. The second is a cross‐sectionally dominated panel dataset of up to 92 countries for the period 1981–2016. Our main findings are as follows: first, religiosity has a significant negative causal effect on health at the macro level; second, a substantial part of this effect can be attributed to an indirect effect via public health expenditures; and third, changes in population health do not cause significant changes in societal religiosity.