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Information about ongoing health services research and public health projects
| The Relationship between Social Capital and Health
(Archived Project) |
|
|---|---|
| Investigator (PI): | Sommers, Andrew R |
| Performing Organization (PO): |
(Current): University of Minnesota, School of Public Health |
| Supporting Agency (SA): | Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) |
| Initial Year: | 2001 |
| Final Year: | 2002 |
| Record Source/Award ID: | CRISP/R03HS11396 |
| Funding: | Total Award Amount: $32,400 |
| Award Type: | Grant |
| Abstract: | The primary goal of this research is to better understand the relationship between social capital and health. Social capital is a concept that broadly embodies trust, cooperation, reciprocity, and civic engagement. Recent studies using aggregated data suggest that increases in social capital are associated with better health, and that population health is associated with social cohesion, civic engagement, and mutual trust. Unfortunately, these studies have done little to explain how a community-level phenomenon translates to the individual's experience and differential health outcomes across individuals within a community. While these studies have avoided problems with cross-level bias by refraining from making inferences about individuals from their grouped data, they have also left unanswered the question of how social capital and health relate at the individual level. Therefore, it is not clear how social capital is beneficial to individual health. This study will attempt to extend theoretical understanding of social capital and to explore its effect on individual health. The primary research question of this study is to test whether social capital is associated with better health at the individual level. Health outcomes will be measured using the physical and mental health scales of the SF-36 scale. A secondary objective of the proposed research is to determine whether people who are 'relatively deprived' have a more difficult time reaping health benefits from social capital. Relative deprivation is a social psychological construct used to refer to dissatisfaction regarding perceived status inequities. This study hypothesizes that an individual, who is psychologically compromised or burdened in this manner, will be less capable of reaping health benefits from available social capital. Data will come from a subsample of the National Health Service Corps [NHSC] health status survey (1998-1999). Respondents are drawn from eight communities in five different states. The NHSC subsample is unique because it contains both individual-level measures of social capital and information about the communities in which respondents reside. Census data on income and educational levels in surrounding communities will be included to measure "fraternal" relative deprivation. By using multi-level modeling techniques, it will be possible to estimate the individual-level health effects of social capital while controlling for the correlational nature of the data. |
| MeSH Terms: |
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| Keywords: |
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| Country: | United States |
| State: | Minnesota |
| Zip Code: | |
| UI: | 20021069 |
| Project Status: | Archived |
