Social capital and social inequality in adolescents’ health in 601 Flemish communities: A multilevel analysis

Abstract

Although it is widely acknowledged that community social capital plays an important role in young people's health, there is limited evidence on the effect of community social capital on the social gradient in child and adolescent health. Using data from the 2005-2006 Flemish (Belgium) Health Behavior among School-aged Children survey (601 communities, n = 10,915), this study investigated whether community social capital is an independent determinant of adolescents' perceived health and well-being after taking account of individual compositional characteristics (e.g. the gender composition within a certain community). Multilevel statistical procedures were used to estimate neighborhood effects while controlling for individual level effects. Results show that individual level factors (such as family affluence and individual social capital) are positively related to perceived health and well-being and that community level social capital predicted health better than individual social capital. A significant complex interaction effect was found, such that the social gradient in perceived health and well-being (i.e. the slope of family affluence on health) was flattened in communities with a high level of community social capital. Furthermore it seems that socioeconomic status differences in perceived health and well-being substantially narrow in communities where a certain (average) level of community social capital is present. This should mean that individuals living in communities with a low level of community social capital especially benefit from an increase in community social capital. The paper substantiates the need to connect individual health to their meso socioeconomic context and this being intrinsically within a multilevel framework.

Social capital and the utilization of maternal and child health services in India: A multilevel analysis

“…These findings are in line with other studies that have found a contextual effect of social capital on other health outcomes, including self-rated health (De Clercq et al, 2012; Eriksson et al, 2011; Mohnen et al, 2011), mental health (De Silva et al, 2007a; Hamano et al, 2010), and health behaviors (Chuang & Chuang, 2008). This study also showed that individual characteristics were important in explaining health care utilization; however, there was an effect of “place” or “community” that could not be attributed to compositional differences, namely social capital.…”

“…In order to understand how social capital operates as a collective attribute, it is important to consider the size of the geographic area. Studies show that social capital can be better understood at the level of the local community, where it depends on day-to-day interactions between neighbors, compared to the state or country level, where social capital reflects more distal social policies (De Clercq et al, 2012; Eriksson et al, 2011; Hamano et al, 2010; Mohnen et al, 2011). …”

How equal is the relationship between individual social capital and psychological distress? A gendered analysis using cross-sectional data from Ghent (Belgium)

“…The cross-sectional nature of the study makes it difficult to rule out reverse causality, i.e. that people who experience high levels of psychological distress might be more socially isolated and have lower levels of trust [69, 70], especially since social isolation is strongly associated with depression [71]. We have tried to counterbalance this by controlling all analyses for psychological resilience.…”

The role of community social capital in the relationship between socioeconomic status and adolescent life satisfaction: mediating or moderating? Evidence from Czech data

“…Social capital and initiatives that increase cohesion, co-operation and interpersonal trust, can play an important role in decreasing socioeconomic inequalities between adolescents with low and high SES, thus effectively flattening the social gradient. Evidence shows that health gains incurred by increasing social capital are particularly marked for disadvantaged (or vulnerable) children and young people in communities with low social capital [15, 16]. Much less is known however on the specific mechanism, i.e.…”