社会资本测量及其在健康领域应用

目的 社会资本是一个多维度多层面的概念,对其进行定量测量是一个非常复杂的程序。本文介绍了社会资本的相关概念及常用测量工具,并讨论了社会资本测量在健康领域的相关实证应用。建议在进行社会资本测量时,应根据调查所在地区的社会人口学特征、经济文化水平等因素,并结合研究目的选择需要测量的社会资本的维度,选用信度和效度量好的测量工具,或采用定性分析和定量测量结合的方法研究社会资本与健康的关联。     

中国农村居民社会资本现状与健康关系的研究

目的 了解中国农村居民的社会资本现状及其与健康的关系.方法 通过分层随机抽样的方法,分析评价了4个县、64个村居民社会资本与健康的关系.结果 (1)个体水平社会资本资源的分布主要有4个构成因素:信息支持、工具性支持、感情支持和决策支持;(2)目前农村各类组织团体很少,大部分农村居民都很少参加集体活动;(3)社会资本许多变量都与健康有显著相关关系.结论 目前农村社会资本发展还不完善,对农村居民健康的影响作用还不是很明显,同时,社会资本影响自感健康和精神健康的因素不一致.     

社会资本与健康关系的研究

20世纪80年代，社会科学中出现一新术语“社会资本”，当时研究者主要探讨社会资本对社会、经济发展的影响。近年来，随着人们对健康的关注，社会资本与健康的关系成为众多学者的研究热点。通过综述国内外文献，阐述了社会资本的定义、测量方法及社会资本与健康的关系。     

在健康调查中测量社会资本的关键问题

随着人们对健康社会决定因素的认识,社会资本已逐渐成为国际健康研究中的一个重要概念.虽然在测量社会资本的方法上尚缺乏经验,尤其是在发展中国家,但是现在已有大量研究提供了有关社会资本测量的重要信息.首先综述了社会资本和健康关系的概念及其重要性,其次阐述了有关社会资本和健康的重要研究中所采用的方法,继而得出值得注意的问题包括获得反映该领域最新发展理论的综合测量方法(尤其是认知、结构、纽带和桥梁社会资本的概念);从个体水平整合到生态水平;重视混杂因素、信度和效度问题.     

社会资本与健康关系的研究

20世纪80年代,社会科学中出现一新术语"社会资本",当时研究者主要探讨社会资本对社会、经济发展的影响.近年来,随着人们对健康的关注,社会资本与健康的关系成为众多学者的研究热点.通过综述国内外文献,阐述了社会资本的定义、测量方法及社会资本与健康的关系.     

中国城市老年人自感健康与社会网络的关系研究

目的探讨中国城市老年人自感健康与社会网络的相关性,为制定有效的老年人健康促进策略提供参考依据。方法利用2008年开展的第四次国家卫生服务调查数据,从社会支持和社会参与两个方面,用最优尺度回归分析评估社会网络对城市老年人自感健康状况的影响。结果中国城市60岁及以上老年人自感健康评分均值为70.96±14.79分,最主要经济来源为自己或配偶的比例为83.53%;每周与邻居交往、参加亲戚朋友聚会、社会聚会和从事力所能及劳动的比例分别为76.08%、25.96%、10.94%和18.31%;对自感健康评分的影响重要性分别为0.039、0.070、0.023和0.022,仅次于身体健康状况。结论社会支持/参与是独立于身体健康状况之外的自感健康的风险因素。社会参与情况对自感健康的影响程度可能超过区域经济水平和来自配偶和子女的支持。社会网络内部不同构成要素对自感健康的影响程度存在差异。     

艾滋病防治领域公民社会组织外部社会资本与组织绩效研究

目的:分析艾滋病防治领域中公民社会组织外部社会资本对组织绩效的影响。方法:采用多阶段分层抽样与整群抽样,对8省艾滋病防治领域212个公民社会组织进行现场调查,采用多元logistic回归统计分析。结果:组织外部社会资本中共同愿景和网络会影响组织的结构绩效(OR=3.23,95%CI:1.77~5.88)、OR=2.21,95%CI:1.21~4.02);共同愿景会影响组织的执行绩效(OR=4.17,95%CI:2.23~7.78);共同愿景和组织的财务绩效成正相关(OR=2.97,95%CI:1.60~5.51);共同愿景、网络、支持分别与组织文化绩效存在正向关联(OR=2.04,95%CI:1.09~3.85)、(OR=2.02,95%CI:1.09~3.76)、(OR=3.34,95%CI:1.79~6.23);共同愿景和网络会影响组织的综合绩效(OR=14.56,95%CI:6.83~31.06)、(OR=2.23,95%CI:1.11~4.48)。结论:艾滋病防治领域社会组织的外部社会资本会影响组织绩效,组织和政府应该大力开发组织的外部社会资本来提高组织绩效。     

在健康调查中测量社会资本的关键问题

随着人们对健康社会决定因素的认识，社会资本已逐渐成为国际健康研究中的一个重要概念。虽然在测量社会资本的方法上尚缺乏经验，尤其是在发展中国家，但是现在已有大量研究提供了有关社会资本测量的重要信息。首先综述了社会资本和健康关系的概念及其重要性，其次阐述了有关社会资本和健康的重要研究中所采用的方法，继而得出值得注意的问题包括；获得反映该领域最新发展理论的综合测量方法（尤其是认知、结构、纽带和桥梁社会资本的概念）；从个体水平整合到生态水平；重视混杂因素、信度和效度问题。     

社会资本在健康管理中的作用认识与方法探讨

主要从健康管理的角度探讨社会资本构成要素与人群健康的关系、社会资本在健康管理工作中的功能及其实现途径等问题。开发社会资本对健康管理的潜在功效不仅有益于增进人群健康水平，同时也有助于发掘并有效利用卫生资源，为卫生工作注入新的活力。     

农村社会经济发展与农民自感健康问题探析

以经济转型时期农村社会、经济、文化发展现状为背景,浅析了农民的自感健康现状及自感健康的重要性,并探析了各种社会因素对自感健康的影响途径和作用方式,为改善当前农民的自感健康现状提供了一些政策建议。     

Toward an institutional perspective on social capital health interventions: lay community health workers as social capital builders

This article argues that social capital health research should move beyond a mere focus on social cohesion and network perspectives to integrate an institutional approach into the development of social capital health interventions. An institutional perspective, which is unique in its emphasis on linking social capital in addition to the bonding and bridging forms, contextualises social capital, allowing researchers to confront the complexity of social relationships. This perspective allows for the construction of interventions that draw on the resources of diverse actors, particularly the state. One intervention strategy with the potential to create community linkages involves lay community health workers (LCHWs), individuals who are trained to perform a variety of health-related functions but lack a formal professional health education. This article begins with a review of the institutional social capital-building literature. It then goes on to briefly review the social capital and health literature and discuss the state of intervention research. Thereafter, it describes LCHWs and discusses studies that have utilised LCHWs to tackle community health problems. In doing so, this article presents an institutional-based systematic framework for how LCHWs can build social capital, including a discussion of the ways in which LCHWs can successfully promote bonding, bridging and linking social capital.     

The measurement of bridging social capital in population health research

Social capital is defined as the resources available to individuals and groups through membership in social networks. The definition is consistent with either an individualistic approach or a collective approach. Social capital can be further classified according to bonding versus bridging social capital (e.g. relationships between individuals who are homogeneous or heterogeneous with respect to social class, race/ethnicity, or other attributes). We conducted a systematic review via Pubmed, the ISI web of knowledge and OVID of the studies that examined bridging social capital in public health settings. Our results indicate lack of consistency or uniformity in the operationalization of bridging social capital. We identify some promising approaches to measurement that should be further investigated in future studies.     

Maternal social capital and child health in Vietnam

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To explore the association between maternal social capital and child physical and mental health in Vietnam. DESIGN: Cross sectional survey. Measures of maternal structural social capital comprised group membership, citizenship, and social support. Measures of cognitive social capital comprised trust, social harmony, sense of fairness, and belonging. Child health was measured by anthropometrics and mothers' reports of acute and chronic physical health problems and child mental health. PARTICIPANTS: 2907 mothers and their 1 year old or 8 year old children from five provinces in Vietnam. MAIN RESULTS: The study found low levels of group membership and citizenship and high levels of cognitive social capital and support, and generally higher levels of social capital among the mothers of 8 year old compared with 1 year old children. All but one association was in the hypothesised direction (that is, higher levels of social capital associated with reduced risk of child health problems). There were more statistically significant relations between maternal social capital and the health of 1 year olds compared with 8 year old children, and between measures of social support and cognitive social capital and child health, than with group membership and involvement in citizenship activities. CONCLUSION: This study is the first to explore the association between multiple dimensions of social capital and a range of different child health outcomes in the developing world. These results now need to be tested using longitudinal data.     

Social inequality and health: the role of social capital

The aim of the article is to examine whether and to what degree the unequal distribution of social capital in the population explains the relationship between socioeconomic position and health in Norway. Theoretical insight and empirical evidence seem to suggest that social capital mediates the effect of socioeconomic position on health outcomes. However, only a few studies have addressed this question and those that have done so have used few and simple indicators of social capital. This study is based on a nationwide cross-sectional survey (N = 3190) commissioned by Statistics Norway. The survey was designed to cover a comprehensive set of variables measuring different aspects of the theoretical construct of social capital. Two health outcomes, self-perceived health and longstanding illness, were analysed. The results showed that the mediating role of social capital between socioeconomic position and health was negligible for both health outcomes. After controlling for socio-demographic variables and socioeconomic position, only neighbourhood satisfaction and generalised trust showed a significant association with self-perceived health, whereas none of the social capital variables had any significant association with longstanding illness. Some theoretical and methodological implications of the results are discussed.     

Social capital and self-rated health: results from the US 2006 social capital survey of one community

Using data from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey in Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, USA, we investigate associations between individual social capital measures (attitudes on trust, formal group involvement, informal socializing, organized group interaction, social support and volunteer activity) and self-rated health after controlling for individual and economic characteristics. In particular, we address issues of social capital as an endogenous determinant of self-reported health using instrumental variables probit estimation. After accounting for the endogeneity of these various measures of individual social capital, we find that individual social capital is a significant predictor of self-rated health.     

Lost in translation: a genealogy of the "social capital" concept in public health

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To examine the genealogy of the social capital concept in public health, with attention to the epistemological concerns and academic practices that shaped the way in which this concept was translated into public health. DESIGN: A citation-network path analysis of the public health literature on social capital was used to generate a genealogy of the social capital concept in public health. The analysis identifies the intellectual sources, influential texts, and developments in the conceptualisation of social capital in public health. PARTICIPANTS: The population of 227 texts (articles, books, reports) was selected in two phases. Phase 1 texts were articles in the PubMed database with "social capital" in their title published before 2003 (n = 65). Phase 2 texts are those texts cited more than once by phase 1 articles (n = 165). MAIN RESULTS: The analysis shows how the scholarship of Robert Putnam has been absorbed into public health research, how three seminal texts appearing in 1996 and 1997 helped shape the communitarian form that the social capital concept has assumed in public health, and how both were influenced by the epistemological context of social epidemiology at the time. CONCLUSIONS: Originally viewed in public health research as an ecological level, psychosocial mechanism that might mediate the income inequality-health pathway, the dominance of the communitarian approach to social capital has given disproportionate attention to normative and associational properties of places. Network approaches to social capital were lost in this translation. Recovering them is key to a full translation and conceptualisation of social capital in public health.     

Mother's social capital and child health in Indonesia

Social capital has been shown to be positively associated with a range of health outcomes, yet few studies have explored the association between mother's social capital and children's health. This study examines the relation between mothers' access to social capital (via participation in community activities) and child health. Instrumental variable estimation was applied to cross sectional data of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 2007 which consist of face-to-face interviews among the adult population in Indonesia (N_mothers = 3450, N_children = 4612, N_communities = 309, and participation rate at 92%). The findings show strong evidence for the causal flow running from a mother's social capital to her children's health. All instruments are highly correlated with mothers' social capital but uncorrelated with child health. The findings are also robust to individual and community characteristics associated with child health, and suggest that enlarging mothers' social capital through various community activities is a particularly relevant intervention for reducing child health disparities in Indonesia.