Testing the association between social capital and health over time: a family-based design

BMC Public Health

Martin Lindström⁴  Maria Rosvall²  Henrik Ohlsson¹  Juan Merlo³  Giuseppe N Giordano¹ 

[1] Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University/Region Skåne, Malmö, Sweden;Department of Public Health and Environment, Region Skåne, Malmö, Sweden;Unit for Social Epidemiology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden;Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

关键词: United Kingdom;    Family-based design;    Longitudinal;    Multilevel;    Trust;    Social capital;    Self-rated health;   

Others  :  1162017
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-13-665

 received in 2013-04-15, accepted in 2013-07-08,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

The past decade has seen a vast increase in empirical research investigating associations between social capital and health outcomes. Literature reviews reveal ‘generalized trust’ and ‘social participation’ to be the most robust of the commonly used social capital proxies, both showing positive association with health outcomes. However, this association could be confounded by unmeasured factors, such as the shared environment. Currently, there is a distinct lack of social capital research that takes into account such residual confounding.

Methods

Using data from the United Kingdom’s British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) (waves thirteen to eighteen, N = 6982), this longitudinal, multilevel study investigates the validity of the association between trust, social participation and self-rated health using a family-based design. As the BHPS samples on entire households, we employed ‘mean’ and ‘difference from the mean’ aggregate measures of social capital, the latter of which is considered a social capital measurement that is not biased by the shared environment of the household. We employed Generalized Estimating Equations for all analyses, our two-level model controlling for correlation at the household level.

Results

Results show that after adjusting for the shared environment of the household over a six year period, the association between social participation and self-rated health was fully attenuated (OR = 0.97 (95% confidence interval 0.89-1.06)), while the association with trust remained significant (OR = 1.11 (1.02-1.20)). Other health determinants, such as being a smoker, having no formal qualifications and being unemployed maintain their associations with poor self-rated health.

Conclusions

The association between social capital (specifically trust and social participation) and self-rated health appear to be confounded by shared environmental factors not previously considered by researchers. However, the association with trust remains, adding to existing empirical evidence that generalized trust may be an independent predictor of health.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Giordano et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

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