COVID-19 Growth Rate Decreases with Social Capital

Abstract

Background Social capital has been associated with many public health variables including mortality, obesity, diabetes, and sexually-transmitted disease rates. However, the relationship of social capital to the spread of infectious disease like COVID-19 is lacking. The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented threat to global health and economy, for which control strategies have relied on aggressive social distancing. However, an understanding of how social capital is related to changes in human mobility patterns for adherence to social distancing is lacking. Objective This study examines the association between state-and county-level social capital indices and community health indices in the United States, and the growth rate of COVID-19 cases. It also examines changes in human mobility. Methods Using publicly available state-and county-specific time series data for COVID-19 cases from March 13 to March 31, we used exponential fits to determine growth rate. We obtained publicly available mobility change data, originally measured from GPS-enabled mobile devices. The design was then stateand county-level correlation analysis with social capital and community health indices from the Social Capital Project (United States Senate). Results In bivariate linear correlation analyses, we find social capital and community health indices were negatively associated with COVID-19 growth rates at both the state and county levels. The correlation was strongest at the county level for the community health index: a one-unit increase in the county community health index was associated with a decrease in the COVID-19 growth rate exponent by 0.045. In further bivariate correlation analyses, we find that social capital indices were negatively associated with retail/recreation movement and positively associated with residential movement. That is, an increase in social capital is correlated with slower COVID-19 infection spread and more adherence to social distancing protocols. Conclusion Our results indicate the potential benefit of incorporating social capital concepts in planning policies to control the spread of COVID-19, e.g. different social distancing requirements in different communities. The results also indicate a need for further research into this potentially causal relationship, including examining interventions to increase social capital, community health, and institutional health.

Social capital and COVID-19: a multidimensional and multilevel approach

“…While the concept of social capital has been highly criticized as being "theoretically underdetermined and fuzzy" (Herrmann-Pillath 2010:327; Bjørnskov and Sønderskov 2013;Carpiano 2006), it is nevertheless a useful one because, as Christoforou (2013:720) points out, it highlights "aspects of human agency, particularly individuals' capability to serve wider public benefits of social welfare based on a sense of social obligation and shared identity." Most recently, a growing literature shows that social capital can largely explain the differences in community response and therefore affect the spread of COVID-19 (e.g., Bai, Jin, and Wan 2020;Barrios et al 2020;Bartscher et al 2020;Borgonovi and Andrieu 2020;Ding et al 2020;Fraser and Aldrich 2020;Kuchler, Russel, and Stroebel 2020;Markridis and Wu 2020;Varshney and Socher 2020;. Conclusions from these studies, however, are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory.…”

“…Johnson's remark is not without empirical support. In fact, social capital, which captures the features of social organizations and formal and informal norms within societies (Coleman 1990;Putnam 2000), has been shown to powerfully predict the diverse COVID-19 responses (e.g., Bai, Jin, and Wan 2020;Barrios et al 2020;Bartscher et al 2020;Borgonovi and Andrieu 2020;Ding et al 2020;Fraser and Aldrich 2020;Kokubun 2020;Kuchler, Russel, and Stroebel 2020;Makridis and Wu 2020;Miao and Zeng 2020;Varshney and Socher 2020;. In the United States, for example, scholars find that counties or states with more social capital tend to have higher testing rates , less social mobility (Borgonovi and Andrieu 2020), more engagement in social distancing (Ding et al 2020) as well as fewer confirmed cases and slower infection growth rates (Markridis and Wu 2020).…”

Social capital and public health: responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Preliminary studies conducted in the United States lend support to the importance of social capital in the COVID-19 response, with the growth rate of new COVID-19 cases found to be negatively associated with the amount of social capital at both the state and county levels [ 4 ]. However, explicitly seeking to employ or strengthen existing social networks for the purpose of improved health outcomes demands thoughtful consideration as to the nature of each intervention group’s social layout.…”

Social capital and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Moreover, in the United States, a higher social capital was found to be positively correlated with decreased mobility (Borgonovi and Andrieu, 2020), highlighting the reduction of community transmission, better self-sustenance, improved health outcomes, and associated psychosocial impacts. Similar studies suggest that social capital is negatively associated with COVID-19 growth rates and retail/recreational movements, and positively associated with residential movement (Varshney and Socher, 2020). This indicates that communities with high social capital may respond more efficaciously than those with low social capital (Pitas and Ehmer, 2020).…”