The Impact of Social Capital and Social Environmental Factors on Mental Health and Flourishing: The Experiences of Migrants in France

Abstract

Background There is growing interest on how social capital and related social environmental factors impact overall population health and well-being. The nature of migrants’ social environment changes once they migrate to a new context and these changes influence their mental health and well-being. However, there is limited scholarship on how these social environmental factors impact the mental health, well-being, and capacity to flourish of migrant populations. Methods The aim of the study, therefore, was to examine how specific social environmental factors—social networks, social support, and social cohesion at various levels (micro, meso, and macro)—influence the mental health, well-being, and capacity to flourish of migrants in France. We used a qualitative, inductive research design, in collaboration with a community-based organization to conduct 120 semi-structured interviews with migrants and asylum seekers in France. Results Participants described how their usual informal social networks comprised of family and friends had been disrupted since they migrated to France, which impacted their mental health and well-being. Conversely, staying connected with their informal transnational social networks via social media and developing ties with new local informal and formal social networks allowed them to receive different forms of social support, and buffered some of the negative mental health effects. However, the lack of social cohesion impeded migrants’ capacity to flourish. The emerging salient themes depicting a lack of social cohesion included a lack of belonging and marginalization, uprootedness and uncertainty, a lack of identity and security, and current harmful migration-related policies. Conclusion While social support derived from social networks buffered some negative impacts on migrant mental health and well-being, the overall lack of social cohesion ultimately impeded migrants’ capacity to flourish within their host communities, which was further exacerbated by harmful migration policies of exclusion within France. Introducing more inclusive policies related to the governance of migration and an intersectoral approach that views health in all policies is key to promoting social cohesion and flourishing among migrants in France.

Social Capital and Quality of Life among the Refugees residing in Mbarara City Southwestern Uganda

“…We also found that high levels of trust and solidarity were positively associated with quality of life with in our sample. Findings that the refugees depicted high levels of social capital are in line with a study, which found that asylum seekers relied more on social support and social networks to survive [11]. Another study that explored urban Congolese refugees' use of social capital to promote resilience during a period of political violence in Nairobi Kenya found out that, refugees used social capital across different contexts to access and distribute resilience-promoting resources [26].The above study observed that refugee women particularly relied on informal bonding forms of capital while men exhibited greater degrees of access to formal bridging and linking networks.…”

“…Yet existence of social capital among the refugees has been shown to reconstruct the lives of the refugees [9]. Studies on the relationship between social capital and quality of life have however recently gained popularity in biomedical and behavioral medicine [10,11]. Social capital theory is premised on the fact that the more the social capital (trust, networks, connections) within the community, the healthier the community would be [12,13].…”

The impact of educational attainment on mental health: A Causal Assessment from the UKB and FinnGen Cohorts

“…[39][40][41][42] Additionally, analyzing individual-level data could enable incorporating a wider array of behavioral, social, and environmental factors that may influence mental health. [39,40,43,44] Future MR studies should integrate detailed measures of diet, physical activity, substance use, childhood experiences, and stress exposures. This will facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the complex interrelationships between education, lifestyle, and psychiatric disease while accounting for confounding.…”