BACKGROUND Social capital has lately received much attention in public health research. However, few studies have examined the influence of social capital on alcohol consumption, smoking and drug use which have strong influence on public health. The present cross-sectional study investigated whether two measures of social capital were related to substance use in a large population of Swedish ad...

The Canadian province of Manitoba has long pursued an aggressive strategy of hydroelectric development. This effort was predicated upon a mix of old and new assumptions, including long-held beliefs that power must be cheap and that the province, operating through its crown utility, Manitoba Hydro, possessed the only legitimate claim to northern land and water resources. The province also recogn...

Social capital has proven to be a useful concept, but has been ill-defined and not wellmeasured in the economics literature. We propose a different empirical method for measuring social capital, latent class analysis, based on the idea that social capital is an unobservable multidimensional construct. We explain and demonstrate the construction of latent classes that measure an individual’s soc...

Social capital is as a kind of capital accumulation that causes social solidarity, social commitment and thus improves self-esteem and social health. Erosion of social capital and the turmoil at the macro and micro levels lead to a variety of social and psychological issues and damages. This study aims to investigate the impact of social capital (in-group and out-group) on the mental health of...

This paper assesses the quality of various micro level measures of social capital. It begins by examining a simple model of social capital accumulation in which households acquire social capital by devoting resources to forming relationships with other households. Through these relationships households acquire access to social resources which raises utility for any level of consumption. Tests o...

While much descriptive research has documented positive associations between social capital and a range of economic, social and health outcomes, there have been few intervention studies to assess whether social capital can be intentionally generated. We conducted an intervention in rural South Africa that combined group-based microfinance with participatory gender and HIV training in an attempt...