Assessing the association between all-cause mortality and multiple aspects of individual social capital among the older Japanese

Abstract

BackgroundFew prospective cohort studies have assessed the association between social capital and mortality. The studies were conducted only in Western countries and did not use the same social capital indicators. The present prospective cohort study aimed to examine the relationships between various forms of individual social capital and all-cause mortality in Japan.MethodsSelf-administered questionnaires were mailed to subjects in the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study (AGES) Project in 2003. Mortality data from 2003 to 2008 were analyzed for 14,668 respondents. Both cognitive and structural components of individual social capital were collected: 8 for cognitive social capital (trust, 3; social support, 3; reciprocity, 2) and 9 for structural social capital (social network). Cox proportional hazard models stratified by sex with multiple imputation were used. Age, body mass index, self-rated health, current illness, smoking history, alcohol consumption, exercise, equivalent income and education were used as covariates.ResultsDuring 27,571 person-years of follow-up for men and 29,561 person-years of follow-up for women, 790 deaths in men and 424 in women were observed. In the univariate analyses for men, lower social capital was significantly related to higher mortality in one general trust variable, all generalised reciprocity variables and four social network variables. For women, lower social capital was significantly related to higher mortality in all generalised reciprocity and four social network variables. After adjusting for covariates, lower friendship network was significantly associated with higher all-cause mortality among men (meet friends rarely; HR = 1.30, 95%CI = 1.10-1.53) and women (having no friends; HR = 1.81, 95%CI = 1.02-3.23). Among women, lower general trust was significantly related to lower mortality (most people cannot be trusted; HR = 0.65, 95%CI = 0.45-0.96).ConclusionsFriendship network was a good predictor for all-cause mortality among older Japanese. In contrast, mistrust was associated with lower mortality among women. Studies with social capital indices considering different culture backgrounds are needed.

Factors Influencing the Preferred Place of Death in Community-dwelling Elderly People in Japan

“…Helliwell and Putnam 15 analyzed the quality and quantities of community social networks using an index of "social capital (SC)", which is based on a fundamental concept encompassing "trust", "rules" and "networks" for promoting cooperative behavior among individuals. It was reported that SC was associated with mortality 12,16 , physical activity 17,18 , mental health 19 , and self-rated health 20e24 .…”

Perceived neighbourhood cohesion and health among mid-aged Australian women

“…[65] There is also good evidence that mortality risks are lower among people who are 6 more socially integrated with higher levels of social cohesion. [13,17,[66][67][68][69][70] However, while there is a large body of research that suggests social cohesion is beneficial to health, associations are not necessarily consistent across studies. [71][72][73][74].…”

“…[70,[75][76][77][78][79][80][81] Social cohesion data are usually derived from cross-sectional surveys of health and social conditions. Other issues that may contribute to inconsistent evidence for associations between social cohesion and health include: different levels of measurement (individual, family or household, neighbourhood, city and country [69,79,[82][83][84][85]) and varied identification of relevant covariates. [70,[75][76][77][78][79][80][81] Each of these will be discussed in turn, starting with how social cohesion is conceptualised.…”

“…For example, associations between "neighbourly reciprocity" and health, and also "trust" and health are more consistent than associations between social participation and health. [49,53,69,86,87] This suggests that broad terms such as social cohesion may not be useful in terms of understanding how neighbourhood based social relationships are associated with health. However as others have pointed out, there is a need to clarify concepts and "sort out exactly what is being measured".…”

“…In these studies people are asked about their perceptions of the neighbourhood (for example [53,69,82,102,104,[129][130][131]). Others have asserted this is inappropriate.…”