Measuring the immeasurable? Operationalising social capital in health research

Abstract

During the last decennia, social capital has been a popular topic in social sciences. However, the concept is often used as a "catch all" for divers social characteristics. Consensus on how the concept should be measured is lacking. This keeps health researchers from drawing firm conclusions on the influence of social capital on health and hampers the decision on which social capital indicators to use in health research. This study compares five ways to operationalise social capital (generalized trust, a social network index, an expanded social network index, bonding, bridging and linking social capital and a multidimensional social capital index) in their ability to explain self-rated health and pain. To evaluate the models' capacity to explain health, two logistic regression models were built, resulting in Nagelkerke R2 measures. Data were collected in a cross-sectional study in eight neighbourhoods in the region of Ghent (Belgium) by randomly sampling 50 adult inhabitants per neighbourhood. Findings show that the explanation of the observed variance in health by the studied social capital models ranges from 1.9% to 23.1%, but is more pronounced for self-rated health than for pain. The multidimensional social capital index explains most of the variance in health, but poses an important strain on the respondents due to a large number of surveyquestions. With some prudence, we presume that the explanatory added value of the more extended social capital models is rather limited from a practical point of view as the addition in explained variance of the other models seems not in relation to the number of questions needed. Researchers should weigh up the pros and cons of different manners to measure social capital carefully, taking the goals and focus of their study into account.

Application of exploratory factor analysis to address the challenge of measuring social capital in a rural communal setting in South Africa

“…Furthermore, unidimensional factors of cognitive SC were not apparent, such as a single trust factor for instance. These results confirm findings of other studies, which suggest that constructs of SC indices that capture the complex interactions between its many underlying structural and cognitive determinants offer higher statistical explanatory powers than single attributes' indicators (Vyncke et al, 2012). The importance of accounting for the complex nature of the constituents of SC is also established by the disparity between multidimensional results, such as those found here and in some other studies (Onyx and Bullen, 2000;Mitchell and Bossert, 2007), versus the unidimensional results of cognitive SC found elsewhere (Narayan and Cassidy, 2001).…”

Social capital – a mixed blessing for women? A cross-sectional study of different forms of social relations and self-rated depression in Moscow

“…One of the most serious criticisms in relation to social capital is that measurements do not match the theory. Although social capital is a multi-dimensional concept, many studies rely on one-dimensional measures [ 98 ]. Few existing instruments measure the various forms of social capital.…”

The Role of Community, Family, Peer, and School Factors in Group Bullying: Implications for School‐Based Intervention

“…On the basis of Developmental Systems, 23,24 Anomie, 25,26 and Social Capital 12,13,27 theories, we hypothesized that young people who reported being associated with parents, caregivers, and community members who offered higher levels of connection, closure, and support would report lower odds of group bullying behavior and experience victimization less frequently than young people who were less well connected or supported. Specifically, we investigated the relationships between group bullying behavior and victimization experiences:…”

“…On the basis of Developmental Systems, Anomie, and Social Capital theories, we hypothesized that young people who reported being associated with parents, caregivers, and community members who offered higher levels of connection, closure, and support would report lower odds of group bullying behavior and experience victimization less frequently than young people who were less well connected or supported. Specifically, we investigated the relationships between group bullying behavior and victimization experiences: Parents and caregivers spending time with their children, being described as supportive by their children, monitoring their children's activities and whereabouts, and having their own adult networks of friendship, assistance, and support; Neighbors knowing their children's friends and children's friends' parents and working with them to coordinate and monitor young people's activities (Community Closure), choosing to intervene when they see community children in need or behaving poorly (Community Intervention), and successfully teaching and role modeling a common set of meaningful community values or beliefs (Minimizing Anomie); Children knowing other young people in their neighborhoods, and receiving support from their peers when required or necessary; School professionals creating and maintaining school environments that children look forward to attending, and staffing their schools with professionals that children respect and enjoy interacting with …”