Social Capital and Psychological Distress

Abstract

The author proposes a conceptual model to explain the diverse roles of social capital--resources embedded in social networks--in the social production of health. Using a unique national U.S. sample, the author estimated a path analysis model to examine the direct and indirect effects of social capital on psychological distress and its intervening effects on the relationships between other structural antecedents and psychological distress. The results show that social capital is inversely associated with psychological distress, and part of that effect is indirect through subjective social status. Social capital also acts as an intervening mechanism to link seven social factors (age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, occupational prestige, annual family income, and voluntary participation) with psychological distress. This study develops the theory of social capital as network resources and demonstrates the complex functions of social capital as a distinct social determinant of health.

Individual social capital, neighbourhood deprivation, and self-rated health in England

“…This instrument asks people about their network members" occupational positions and considers these positions as good indicators of the network resources. Position generators have already been used in health studies (Carpiano & Hystad, 2011;Moore et al, 2011;Song, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009). In this study, respondents were asked whether they know friends, relatives or acquaintances who have any of the jobs from a list of 11 occupations.…”

“…Both positive and negative associations between network resources and health could be explained by three types of mechanisms: neo-materialist mechanisms (Haines et al, 2011), socio-psychological mechanisms (Carpiano & Hystad, 2011;Song, 2011), and health lifestyle mechanisms (Abel & Frohlich 2012;Cockerham, 2005). Future research should explicitly test and compare these explanations.…”

“…This school of social capital is rooted in the work of Bourdieu (1986) and Lin (2001) and is called the "network resources" approach (Ferlander, 2007). Although health studies using this approach are less numerous, they have shown that network resources are positively associated with self-rated health (Carpiano & Hystad, 2011;Moore et al, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009;Verhaeghe et al, 2012) and several mental health outcomes (Acock & Hurlbert, 1993;Haines et al, 2011;Song, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009;Webber & Huxley, 2007;).…”

“…Network members" resources could affect health both positively and negatively through several pathways (Kawachi & Berkman, 2001;Song, 2011). Firstly, neo-materialist explanations emphasize the (lack of) access to health-related resources through network members (such as money for healthy food, access to health care or health insurance) or the exposure to socio-economic stressors (such as job loss or mortgage delinquencies of network members).…”

Discrimination against people with severe mental illness and their access to social capital: findings from the Viewpoint survey

“…Health gains can be accrued by investing in relationships, which may promote positive health behaviours (Zambon et al 2010), provide employment opportunities (Flap, 1999), and reinforce an individual's identification with a group and help to maintain subjective social status (Song, 2011).…”