Individual-level social capital and self-rated health in Japan: An application of the Resource Generator |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Epidemiology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan;2. Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA;3. Support Center for Medical Cooperation, Human Resource Placement and Career Promotion of Okayama Prefecture, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan;1. Research Team for Social Participation and Community Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan;2. University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA;1. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, Saliyapura, Sri Lanka;2. Brain and Mind Research Institute/CCS Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Australia;3. Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, Saliyapura, Sri Lanka;1. Department of Health Sciences, Seebohm Rowntree Building, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK;2. Department of Economics and IZA, University of Bath, Bath, UK;3. Arthritis Research UK Pain Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK;4. Centre for Social & Health Outcomes Research & Evaluation (SHORE), Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand |
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| Abstract: | Despite accumulating evidence of associations between social capital and health in public health research, a criticism of the field has been that researchers have exclusively focused on concepts of social cohesion to the exclusion of individual-level approaches. In the present study, we evaluated the association between social capital measured by the Resource Generator (an individual-level assessment of access to social capital) and self-rated health among Japanese population in a cross-sectional study. A postal survey of 4000 randomly selected residents in Okayama City (western Japan) was conducted in February 2009. We divided the overall scores from the Resource Generator Japan scale into quartiles. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for self-rated health were calculated separately by sex. Individuals with the highest quartile of scores had significantly lower odds of poor health compared to the lowest group after covariate adjustment among both men and women (men; OR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.24–0.86, women; OR: 0.44, 95% CI: 0.25–0.79, respectively) and there were also significant dose–response relationships. In the sub-domains of Resource Generator Japan scale, a differential pattern was observed by sex. Women showed a clear dose–response relationship with health across all four sub-scales (domestic resources, expert advice, personal skills, and problem solving resources). In contrast, only the domain of expert advice exhibited a strong association with men's health. Among both men and women individual-level social capital measured by the Resource Generator was related to reduced odds of poor health even after taking into account individual confounders. Although we cannot exclude reverse causation due to the cross-sectional design, our study adds to the accumulating evidence of the potential utility of the Resource Generator for evaluating the relationship between individual-level access to social capital and health. |
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