Social capital and its relationship with measures of health status: evidence from the Health Survey for England 2003 (original) (raw)
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Social Science & Medicine, 2008
Using data from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey in Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, USA, we investigate associations between individual social capital measures (attitudes on trust, formal group involvement, informal socializing, organized group interaction, social support and volunteer activity) and self-rated health after controlling for individual and economic characteristics. In particular, we address issues of social capital as an endogenous determinant of self-reported health using instrumental variables probit estimation. After accounting for the endogeneity of these various measures of individual social capital, we find that individual social capital is a significant predictor of self-rated health.
Social Science & Medicine, 2010
Individual aspects of social capital have been shown to have significant associations with health outcomes. However, research has seldom tested different elements of social capital simultaneously, whilst also adjusting for other well-known health determinants over time. This longitudinal individuallevel study investigates how temporal changes in social capital, together with changes in material conditions and other health determinants affect associations with self-rated health over a six year period. We use data from the British Household Panel Survey, a randomly selected cohort which is considered representative of the United Kingdom's population, with the same individuals (N ¼ 9303) providing responses to identical questions in 1999 and 2005. Four measures of social capital were used: interpersonal trust, social participation, civic participation and informal social networks. Material conditions were measured by total income (both individual and weighted household income), net of taxation. Other health determinants included age, gender, smoking, marital status and social class. After the baseline sample was stratified by health status, associations were examined between changes in health status and changes in all other considered variables. Simultaneous adjustment revealed that inability to trust demonstrated a significant association with deteriorating self-rated health, whereas increased levels of social participation were significantly associated with improved health status over time. Low levels of household and individual income also demonstrated significant associations with deteriorating self-rated health. In conclusion, it seems that interpersonal trust and social participation, considered valid indicators of social capital, appear to be independent predictors of self-rated health, even after adjusting for other well-known health determinants. Understandably, how trust and social participation influence health outcomes may help resolve the debate surrounding the role of social capital within the field of public health.
Journal of Urban Health, 2006
Communities may be rich or poor in a variety of stocks of social capital. Studies that have investigated relations among these forms and their simultaneous and combined health effects are sparse. Using data on a sample of 24,835 adults (more than half of whom resided in core urban areas) nested within 40 U.S. communities from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey, correlational and factor analyses were applied to determine appropriate groupings among eight key social capital indicators (social trust, informal social interactions, formal group involvement, religious group involvement, giving and volunteering, diversity of friendship networks, electoral political participation, and non-electoral political participation) at each of the community and individual levels. Multilevel logistic regression models were estimated to analyze the associations between the grouped social capital forms and individual self-rated health. Adjusting the three identified community-level social capital groupings/scales for one another and community-and individual-level sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, each of the odds ratios of fair/poor health associated with living in a community one standard deviation higher in the respective social capital form was modestly below one. Being high on all three (vs. none of the) scales was significantly associated with 18% lower odds of fair/poor health (odds ratio = 0.82, 95% confidence interval = 0.69-0.98). Adding individual-level social capital variables to the model attenuated two of the three community-level social capital associations, with a few of the former characteristics appearing to be moderately significantly protective of health. We further observed several significant interactions between community-level social capital and one's proximity to core urban areas, individual-level race/ethnicity, gender, and social capital. Overall, our results suggest primarily beneficial yet modest health effects of key summary forms of community social capital, and heterogeneity in some of these effects by urban context and population subgroup. ) Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning empirical literature linking social capital at the collective and individual levels to better health outcomes. 5 The vast majority of these studies have applied indicators of interpersonal trust, norms of reciprocity, and associational memberships (at the individual, community, or state level), such that the operationalization of social capital has largely corresponded to a small subset of domains. Moreover, few studies have simultaneously investigated social capital at the community and individual levels. 5 Using data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey (SCBS), the most comprehensive U.S. survey of social capital to date among adults across 40 communities, Helliwell and Putnam 7 estimated the associations between two community social capital indicators (average levels of trust and associational memberships) and individual self-rated health, controlling for community-level median income and individual-level associational memberships, trust, importance of God/religion, frequency of religious service attendance, and sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. At the community level, only social trust was significantly related to better health, while at the individual level, associational memberships, trust, and religious service attendance were all significantly associated with better health.
Lund University Faculty of Medicine Doctoral Dissertation Series, 2012
Since Durkheim's seminal work over a century ago, research has repeatedly shown that individuals with higher levels of social integration, social networks and social support have better health status. However, the recent introduction of a contextual phenomenon known as social capital to the field of public health has sparked lively debate as to how it may also influence the health of individuals, if at all.
The effect of health on social capital; a longitudinal observation study of the UK
BMC Public Health
Background UK health policy increasingly focusses on health as an asset. This represents a shift of focus away from specific risk factors towards the more holistic capacity by which integrated care assets in the community support improvements in both health and the wider flourishing of individuals. Though the social determinants of health are well known, relatively little research has focussed on the impact of an individual’s health on their social outcomes. This research investigates how improved health can deliver a social return through the development of social capital. Methods An observational study is undertaken on 25 years of longitudinal data, from 1991, drawn from the harmonised British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and Understanding Society Survey (USS). Fixed effects instrumental variable panel data regression analysis is undertaken on individuals. The number of memberships of social organisations, as a measure of structural social capital, is regressed on subjectively me...
Social capital and self-rated health – A study of temporal (causal) relationships
Social Science & Medicine, 2012
Despite the vast amount of research over the past fifteen years, there is still lively debate surrounding the role of social capital on individual health outcomes. This seems to stem from a lack of consistency regarding the definition, measurement and plausible theories linking this contextual phenomenon to health. We have further identified a knowledge gap within this field e a distinct lack of research investigating temporal relationships between social capital and health outcomes. To remedy this shortfall, we use four waves of the British Household Panel Survey to follow the same individuals (N ¼ 8114) between years 2000 and 2007. We investigate temporal relationships and association between our outcome variable self-rated health (SRH) and time-lagged explanatory variables, including three individual-level social capital proxies and other well-known health determinants. Our results suggest that levels of the social capital proxy 'generalised trust' at time point (t À 1) are positively associated with SRH at subsequent time point (t), even after taking into consideration levels of other well-known health determinants (such as smoking status) at time point (t À 1). That we investigate temporal relationships at four separate occasions over the seven-year period lends considerable weight to our results and the argument that generalised trust is an independent predictor of individual health. However, lack of consensus across a variety of disciplines as to what generalised trust is believed to measure creates ambiguity when attempting to identify possible pathways from higher trust to better health.
From Social Capital to Health - and Back
Health Economics, 2014
We assess the causal relationship between health and social capital, measured by generalized trust, both at the individual and the community level. The paper contributes to the literature in two ways: it tackles the problems of endogeneity and reverse causation between social capital and health by estimating a simultaneous equation model, and it explicitly accounts for mis-reporting in self reported trust. The relationship is tested using data from the first four waves of the European Social Survey for 26 European countries, supplemented by regional data from the Eurostat. Our estimates show that a causal and positive relationship between selfperceived health and social capital does exist and that it acts in both directions. In addition, the magnitude of the structural coefficients suggests that individual social capital is a strong determinant of health, while community level social capital plays a considerably smaller role in determining health.
Individual social capital, neighbourhood deprivation, and self-rated health in England
Social Science & Medicine, 2012
Individual social capital is increasingly considered to be an important determinant of an individual"s health. This study examines the extent to which individual social capital is associated with self-rated health and the extent to which individual social capital mediates the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and self-rated health in an English sample. Individual social capital was conceptualized and operationalized in both the social cohesion-and network resource tradition, using measures of generalized trust, social participation and social network resources. Network resources were measured with the position generator. Multilevel analyses were applied to wave 2 and 3 of the Taking Part Surveys of England, which consist of face-to-face interviews among the adult population in England (N i =25,366 respondents, N j =12,388 neighbourhoods). The results indicate that generalized trust, participation with friends and relatives and having network members from the salariat class are positively associated with self-rated health. Having network members from the working class is, however, negatively related to self-rated health. Moreover, these social capital elements are partly mediating the negative relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and self-rated health. Individual social capital, neighbourhood deprivation, and selfrated health in England
Social capital and health—Purely a question of context?
Health & Place, 2011
Debate still surrounds which level of analysis (individual vs. contextual) is most appropriate to investigate the effects of social capital on health. Applying multilevel ecometric analyses to British Household Panel Survey data, we estimated fixed and random effects between five individual-, household-and small area-level social capital indicators and general health. We further compared the variance in health attributable to each level using intraclass correlations. Our results demonstrate that association between social capital and health depends on indicator type and level investigated, with one quarter of total individual-level health variance found at the household level. However, individual-level social capital variables and other health determinants appear to influence contextuallevel variance the most.
Social capital as a determinant of population health outcomes: A global perspective
2018
This study contributes to the health literature by decomposing health outcomes into three dimensions that are physical health, mental health and well-being of individuals. Where physical health is measured using life expectancy, infant mortality and self-rated health indicators while mental health is measured using stress index and addition of smoking in both males and females. Finally, well-being is measured using the index of happiness. The empirical analysis is conducted using OLS and GMM for 61 countries from 1980 to 2014. Overall results indicate that social capital is positively associated with all dimensions of health outcomes as high trusting individuals report better health outcomes in comparison to low trusting individuals. The results also reveal that the impact of social capital on mental health is stronger than the impact on physical health. Moreover, social capital is more conducive for controlling stress index than producing happiness. The main message of this researc...