Location, location, location: contextual and compositional health effects of social capital in British Columbia, Canada.
نویسنده
چکیده
After decades of epidemiological exploration into individual-level risk factors for ill health, a recent surge of interest in the health effects of socially patterned attributes of geographically defined 'places' has given the structural side of the agency-structure debate new prominence in population health research. Utilizing two original data sets, one pertaining to features of communities in British Columbia, Canada and the other to characteristics of individuals living in them, this article distinguishes the health effects of socially patterned attributes of communities, including the social capital of communities, from the health effects of characteristics of residents that contribute to social capital, e.g., trust and participation in voluntary associations. Results from multilevel analysis demonstrated that, of three different individual-level measures of health and well-being (and including measures of long-term limiting illness and self-rated health), only a measure of depressive symptoms had variability that could be reasonably attributed to the level of the community. The social capital of communities in the form of the availability of public spaces explained some of this variability, but in the direction contrary to expectations. Overall, location (community of residence) did little to explicate health inequalities in this context. The strongest predictors of health in multivariate and multilevel models were characteristics of individual survey respondents, namely, income, trust in politicians and governments, and trust in other members of the community. Breadth of participation in networks of voluntary association was not significantly related to health in multivariate models.
منابع مشابه
The Challenges of Projecting the Public Health Impacts of Marijuana Legalization in Canada; Comment on “Legalizing and Regulating Marijuana in Canada: Review of Potential Economic, Social, and Health Impacts”
A recent editorial in this journal provides a summary of key economic, social, and public health considerations of the forthcoming legislation to legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana in Canada. As our government plans to implement an evidence-based public health framework for marijuana legalization, we reflect and expand on recent discussions of the public health implications of...
متن کاملRole of Immunohistochemistry in the Diagnosis of Solitary Fibrous Tumor, a Review
Background: Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is a mesenchymal tumor which is most commonly seen in the pleura; however it can be seen in other organs such as the meninge, gastrointestinal tract, soft tissue, bone, and skin. SFT should be differentiated from other mesenchymal tumors in these organs. Immunohistochemistry plays a pivotal role for the histopathologic diagnosis...
متن کاملSocial space, social class and Bourdieu: health inequalities in British Columbia, Canada.
This article adopts Pierre Bourdieu's cultural-structuralist approach to conceptualizing and identifying social classes in social space and seeks to identify health effects of class in one Canadian province. Utilizing data from an original questionnaire survey of randomly selected adults from 25 communities in British Columbia, social (class) groupings defined by cultural tastes and disposition...
متن کاملIs Play-Dough a Vector for Transporting and Accumulating Lead? A Pilot Study Of Daycares in Greater Vancouver
متن کامل
Time to Shift from Systems Thinking-Talking to Systems Thinking-Action; Comment on “Constraints to Applying Systems Thinking Concepts in Health Systems: A Regional Perspective from Surveying Stakeholders in Eastern Mediterranean Countries”
A recent International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM) article by Fadi El-Jardali and colleagues makes an important contribution to the literature on health system strengthening by reporting on a survey of healthcare stakeholders in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) about Systems Thinking (ST). The study’s main contributions are its confirmation that healthcare stakeholde...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
- Social science & medicine
دوره 60 9 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2005