Social Capital And Health

As interest in social capital has grown over the past decade—particularly in public health —so has the lack of consensus on exactly what it is and what makes it worth studying. Ichiro Kawachi, a widely respected leader in the field, and 21 contributors (including physicians, economists, and public health experts) discuss the theoretical origins of social capital, the strengths and limitations of current methodologies of measuring it, and salient examples of social capital concepts informing public health practice. Among the highlights: Measurement methods: survey, sociometric, ethnographic, experimental The relationship between social capital and physical health and health behaviors: smoking, substance abuse, physical activity, sexual activity Social capital and mental health: early findings Social capital and the aging community Social capital and disaster preparedness Social Capital and Health is certain to inspire a new generation of research on this topic, and will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in public health, health behavior, and social epidemiology.

This book is a follow up to Social Capital and Health (2008), edited by Kawachi, Subramanian & Kim. Global Perspectives on Social Capital and Health provides a timely update on emerging topics in a fast-growing field, and features contributions from an outstanding international team of scholars, selected from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds including: social epidemiology, medical geography, social psychology, social welfare and gerontology, pediatrics, political science, economics, and medical sociology. The book is organized in three parts: Part 1. Emerging directions in social capital research. This section highlights novel directions in social capital research. These include: a) novel settings for conducting research on social capital (workplaces, schools), b) new approaches for causal inference in social capital (instrumental variable analysis, twin fixed effects designs); c) cutting-edge directions for social capital research, including studies of the origins of community social capital, the use of social network analysis to investigate social capital, and novel methods for investigating the link between social capital and crime. Part 2. Social capital and health policy. The three chapters in this section highlight implications of social capital for interventions and health policy. Part 3. Social capital and health in global perspective The four chapters in this section look at research on social capital and health from a global perspective. The authors summarize the empirical studies on social capital and health conducted in each country/region, or each population group; discuss how the concept of social capital “translates” across different cultures; and identify challenges and future directions for research.

This book shows the important links between social conditions and health and begins to describe the processes through which these health inequalities may be generated. It reviews a range of methodologies that could be used by health researchers in this field and proposes innovative future research directions.

Social capital is a widely acknowledged candidate for implementing beneficial democratic processes and promoting public health. Healthy ties. Social capital, population health and survival traces the path from the conceptualization to the implementation of social capital. To provide empirical proof of the effects of social capital on public health is a serious challenge and the main focus of the book. In the Nordic countries, personal identification codes linking data from various sources, nation-wide population registers, nationally representative and re-tested health surveys, and the long tradition of epidemiology submit to serve well the research into social capital and public health. Up-to-date longitudinal data on social capital and health outcomes are carefully described and reviewed in this book. In Finland, the Swedish-speaking minority is very long-lived and has better health as compared with the Finnish-speaking majority.

Sherman Folland and Eric Nauenberg present the cutting edge of research covering the ever-expanding social capital field. With excellent contributions from leading academics, the Elgar Companion to Social Capital and Health offers a developed examination of new research across sociology, epidemiology, economics, psychology, and political science.

This book defines the field of social capital and health. Over the last two decades, there has been a recognition of the importance of social capital (usually defined as ties in the community, attachment to the community, and participation in community activities) and its impact on the health of those in that community. The purpose of this book is to show the growth in the field of social capital and health and to expose readers to a variety of approaches in order to think about and model the question of how health can be improved by investments in community social capital as well as by individual social capital. An outstanding set of papers will be presented by authors from the United States, as well as from Europe and Asia. These papers are cutting-edge and explore the mechanisms through which social capital affects health. The papers also present the most recent empirical work and discuss the policy implications of their findings. Without a doubt, this will be a landmark book which will make the study of social capital and its impact on health a major area of research in the coming decade. Contents:Introduction to the Economics of Social Capital and Health (Sherman Folland and Lorenzo Rocco)What is Social Capital and How Does It Work to Improve Health? (Sherman Folland)How Do We Invest in Social Capital? And Exploration of an Economic Model of Social Capital and Health (Sherman Folland, Oddvar Kaarbøe and Kamrul Islam)Social Capital: An Economics Perspective (Audrey Laporte)How Does Social Capital Arise in Populations? (Sherman Folland and Tor Iversen)Measures of Social Capital (Richard M Scheffler and Yumna Bahgat)The Empirics of Social Capital and Health (Lorenzo Rocco and Elena Fumagalli)Social Capital and Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (José Anchorena, Lucas Ronconi and Sachiko Ozawa)Social Capital and Smoking (Lorenzo Rocco and Beatrice d'Hombres)Policy Implications (Eline Aas) Readership: Students and professionals interested in health economics. Key Features:Consists of contributions from internationally renowned authorsProvides first-rate empirical analysisAccessible to non-economistsKeywords:Social Capital;Health and Social CapitalReviews: “Many health economists (and others) believe that ‘social capital’ matters but are not sure how to operationalize the concept in theory or empirical research. This wide-ranging volume tackles social capital with the precision of economics, proposing explicit workable definitions and rigorous empirical tests. I particularly appreciate the careful linking of the recent work on social capital to long-standing ideas in economics about institutions, trust, and family.” Thomas G McGuire Professor, Department of Health Care Policy Harvard Medical School “This is an excellent book. The authors exemplify the value of approaching complex issues from different disciplinary perspectives, applying economic perspectives to provide new insights into the relationship between social capital and health and its importance for individuals and society.” Martin McKee Professor, Department of Health Services Research and Policy London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine “This book is an important step forward on the path to conceptualising social capital and its multiple influences on people's health. The dimensions explored are relevant to scholarly work as well as policy making. Perhaps for the first time, this book provides a comprehensive account of the health gains that may derive from investment in social capital by individuals or governments.” Franco Sassi Senior Health Economist OECD, Paris “This book sheds new light on relationships that the typical health, labor, and family economists tend to overlook. For instance, would you have thought that marriage can be interpreted as demand for Social Capital? Or did you know that the birth of a handicapped child acts like a negative shock to Social Capital, causing fathers to engage in crime with increased probability? Or that ‘Trust’ declines from North to South not only between countries but within the United States as well? Of particular value are the several survey tables providing readers with a key to the recent literature. In short: Maximum learning per unit time.” Peter Zweifel Professor, Department of Economics University of Zurich