Religious worship service attendance in the US is yet to reach the same levels as before the pandemic.
Since the start of the pandemic, regular attendance has hovered around the 30% mark.
Latest figures from Gallup show that attendance is crawling back up but remains below pre-Covid levels.
A poll of 1,011 adults conducted between May 1 and 24 found that 31% of Americans attended a service at a church, mosque, synagogue or temple either online or in person in the past week.
This is up slightly from the 30% who said the same last year but still below levels seen in 2019 (34%), the last year of uninterrupted services before Covid broke out in 2020.
Broken down by denomination, Catholics have seen the biggest fall in regular attendance, from 37% between 2016 and 2019, to 30% between 2020 and 2023.
Protestant attendance also remains below pre-pandemic levels but the decline has not been so steep - falling from 44% in 2016-2019, to 40% in 2020-2023.
Most weekly churchgoers are attending in person (84%) compared to 16% joining online services.
Gallup said it was unclear how much the pandemic had caused the decline but noted that "the temporary closure of churches and ongoing COVID-19 avoidance activities did get many Americans out of the habit of attending religious services weekly".
"[I]t is not clear if the pandemic is the cause of the reduced attendance or if the decline is a continuation of trends that were already in motion," Gallup said.
