Social capital and health: A systematic review of systematic reviews

Abstract

There are many systematic reviews on social capital (SC) and various health outcomes, but each of these reviews shows one piece of the larger SC and health puzzle. The aim of this research was to systematically review systematic reviews on SC and health, in order to provide an overview of existing evidence and to identify strategies for future research. Nine databases were searched for key words that could fall under the broad umbrella of SC and health outcomes. We screened 4941 titles and abstracts and read 187 reviews before retaining 20 of them. A critical appraisal of each review was conducted. The reviews show there is good evidence to suggest that SC predicts better mental and physical health, and indicators of SC are protective against mortality. At the same time, many reviews also found numerous non-significant and negative relationships that are important to consider. It was unclear whether SC interventions for health were really improving SC, or other aspects of the social environment. Overall, this research shows that evidence on how various aspects of SC affect different health outcomes for different actors remains unclear. Intergroup and lifecourse perspectives could help clarify this link. Future research could benefit from conceptualizing the link between SC and health in a what, who, where, when, why and how framework.

Social Capital and Self-Rated Health among Older Adults Living in Urban China: A Mediation Model

“…Consistent with previous studies, the findings support social capital theory and confirm the silent role of cognitive social capital in SRH as compared with structural social capital [20]. Although mixed findings of the relationship between structural social capital and SRH were noted in the previous literature [7,21,22,24,25], the findings of the present study indicate that high levels of structural social capital is associated with good SRH.…”

“…The association between structural social capital and SRH were also found to be nonsignificant in Chinese contexts [8]. These inconsistent findings might be because the lack of consensus regarding the measurement of structural social capital and the lack of studies examining the interactions between cognitive social capital and structural social capital and their influences on SRH [20].…”

“…Cognitive social capital indicators such as trust and reciprocity were found to have larger effects on SRH than structural social capital indicators (e.g., social participation) [19]. A recent systematic review showed that cognitive social capital generally predicts good SRH [20]. For example, the findings of longitudinal studies showed that social trust was a significant predictor of SRH in the United Kingdom and South Africa [21,22].…”

Mental health outcomes of quarantine and isolation for infection prevention: A systematic umbrella review of the global evidence

“…Seventh, interpersonal relationships, networks, and social capital appear to have critical significance during major health events, including quarantine and isolation [52]. Such ties must be explored and leveraged to improve mental health outcomes during infection prevention.…”

The sooner the better? Anxiety and deliberate exposure to COVID-19 risk among young adults in France

“…Recent empirical studies reveal that higher levels of social values such as generalised trust, altruism and reciprocity are associated with higher compliance with confinement measures [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] . We specifically focused on generalised trust and reciprocity, as a large body of literature in the social sciences has previously analysed the role of these social values in the emergence of cooperative behaviours at a collective level [29][30][31][32] , and the social epidemiology literature has also documented their associations with various health outcomes at the individual and community levels [33][34][35] . We expected that a higher tendency to endorse these social values would be associated with lower WiRE and less sensitivity to anxiety-related factors.…”