This is interesting. But it's also true that the effect of social capital on health depends on (1) how social capital is conceived & measured; (2) the level of analysis. At the individual level, it is fairly well established that having some close friends or family members is good for health (recall Wilkinson's advice). Social support is particularly beneficial in times of stress, when diagnosed with a serious illness, when recovering from surgery, etc. Some might argue that social support is not the same as social capital. Others see it as a type of social capital. At a more structural level, Rob Sampson (chair of my department) and Jeff Morenoff have some interesting research showing how "collective efficacy" partly mediates the effects of poverty and inequality on health. For example, in a neighbourhood setting, collective efficacy is the shared belief that you and your neighbours could come together and help each other out in times of crisis (e.g., if the city wants to build a highway through your neighbourhood and you and your neighbours don't want that, could you come together and stop it?). Perhaps not surprisingly, higher income communities have higher levels of collective efficacy, and this partly explains why these communities have less street crime and better health. Conversely, poverty and deprivation tend to harm the collective efficacy of a community, making it more vulnerable to things like violent crime (not necessarily perpetrated by people who live in that community). Granted, a poor community's lack of collective efficacy is often due to a realistic assessment of the barriers it faces. But, here's the trick: poor communities with higher collective efficacy have lower crime and better health than poor communities with lower collective efficacy (but the former still don't fare as well as rich communities). One implication might be that by building strong communities with lots of trust and social support, you can create the conditions for people to come together and demand better access to material resources, public services, etc. Eventually, if all goes well, resources will be more evenly distributed to these communities, and they will benefit from BOTH higher collective efficacy and better material conditions. To be clear, I think material conditions are by far the most important social determinant of health. But one of the ways they improve or harm people's health is by raising or lowering their levels of social capital. Conversely, social capital can be mobilized to seek broader structural changes and improve health - and I see people like Dennis Raphael, Chrystal Ocean, and several others on this list doing just that. :-) A few useful references (a google search will reveal more): Israel, Barbara A; et al. 2002. "The relationship between social support, stress, and health among women on Detroit's East Side." Health Educ Behav 29(3): 342-60. Uchino, Bert. 2005. Social Support and Physical Health: Understanding the Health Consequences of Relationships. New Haven: Yale U Press. Kawachi, I, BP Kennedy, K Lochner and D Prothrow-Stith. 1997. "Social capital, income inequality, and mortality." American Journal of Public Health 87(9): 1491-1498. Morenoff, Jeffrey. 2003. "Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynamics of birth weight." American Journal of Sociology, 108 (5): 976-1017. Sampson, Robert J., Stephen Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. "Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science 277: 918-24. (I think all these studies were conducted in the US. But there is evidence that many of the same processes also occur elsewhere - for example, Sampson's collective efficacy model holds up in Sweden and Indonesia). Best, Jeff -- Jeff Denis PhD Student Department of Sociology Harvard University "The principle of organizing our society for the benefit of all the people and not for a privileged few - that is still here and that is a principle to which we adhere." - Tommy C. Douglas Quoting Dennis Raphael <[log in to unmask]>: > "Social Capital" vs. "Neomaterialist" Interpretations of Health > Inequalities > > Christine Lindström and Martin Lindström > > The effects of social capital, income inequality, and absolute per capita > income were investigated in an ecological analysis of 23 rich and poor > countries. Trust was chosen as an indicator of social capital, and GNP > (gross > national product) per capita and Gini index measured absolute and relative > income, respectively. These independent variables were analyzed in a > linear > regression model with the dependent variables adult mortality rate (25-64 > years), life expectancy, and infant mortality rate (IMR). Separate > analyses > were performed for poor and rich countries as well as all countries > combined. > Social capital (trust) showed no significant association with the three > health > outcomes. A particularly strong relationship was found between Gini index > and IMR for rich countries, and GNP per capita and life expectancy for all > countries. In the group of poor countries, GNP per capita and Gini index > in the > same model were associated with IMR. > > The results contradict the suggested impact of social capital on health, > and > instead support the notion that economic factors such as absolute income > and > relative income distribution are of importance. > > International Journal of Health Services, Volume 36, Number 4, Pages > 679-696, 2006 > > ------------------- > Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask] > > > To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the > subject header -- to [log in to unmask] > > SIGNOFF SDOH > > DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. 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