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The Influence of Social Capital on Individual Health: Is it the Neighbourhood or the Network?

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Abstract

We examined the influence of both individual and neighbourhood social capital on individual health and analysed whether effects of one type of social capital are contingent upon the other. The Dutch ‘Housing and Living Survey’ (WoON 2006, n = 53,269) was used and combined with information on neighbourhoods (n = 3,273). Using an ecometric approach to estimate neighbourhood social capital, we found that both types of capital were associated with health. In addition, those who have only few contacts with friends and relatives have nevertheless a good health if they have much neighbourhood social capital. The findings demonstrate the potential importance of both types of social capital and the possibility of compensation of one type of social capital by the other one.

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Notes

  1. The idea that something new develops from a community is also expressed in the phrase, ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts’ (King 2005, p. 96; Von Ehrenfels 1890). This expression of the German ‘Gestalt’-theory is based on research on ‘melody’. A melody is more than the sum of notes. In the context of a neighbourhood this means that the whole is a close-knit community with shared norms and access to community resources, whereas the sum would only be the number of inhabitants and interactions between them are not taken into account.

  2. An exception is Portes (1998) who believed that social capital would harm the health of the individual.

  3. Data can be found online at http://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/home with a search for urn:nbn:nl:ui:13-tcv-dug. Accessed in January 2013.

  4. Statistics Netherlands: http://statline.cbs.nl/statweb/. Accessed in January 2013.

  5. If no information on the number of the household members was available (n = 7,630), we used the non-weighted monthly household income.

  6. We used http://www.jeremydawson.co.uk/2-way_with_binary_moderator.xls. The intercept was 1.274.

  7. 8.39 % = EXP((0.177*0) + (0.403*0,2) − (0.177*0*0,2)) − EXP((0.177*0) + (0.403*0) − (0.298*0*0)).

  8. 3.2 times = (8.39 %/2.53 %) while 2.53 % = = EXP((0.177*1) + (0.403*0,2) − (0.298*1*0.2)) − EXP((0.177*1) + (0.403*0) − (0.298*1*0)).

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) for making our free use of WoON 2006 possible. We thank Dr. Wouter Steenbeek (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Amsterdam) for his help with applying ecometrics. The article benefited from comments by Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) colleagues at ‘Forum days’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Quality of Care and Health Economics, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), PO Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    Sigrid M. Mohnen

  2. Department of Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Beate Völker, Henk Flap & Peter P. Groenewegen

  3. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave., Kresge Building 7th Floor, 716, Boston, MA, 02115-6096, USA

    S. V. Subramanian

  4. Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), Otterstraat 118–124, 3513 CR, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Peter P. Groenewegen

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  1. Sigrid M. Mohnen
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Correspondence to Sigrid M. Mohnen.

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Mohnen, S.M., Völker, B., Flap, H. et al. The Influence of Social Capital on Individual Health: Is it the Neighbourhood or the Network?. Soc Indic Res 121, 195–214 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0632-8

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