A Multilevel Analysis of Key Forms of Community- and Individual-Level Social Capital as Predictors of Self-Rated Health in the United States
Open accessAbstract
Communities may be rich or poor in a variety of stocks of social capital. Studies that have investigated relations among these forms and their simultaneous and combined health effects are sparse. Using data on a sample of 24,835 adults (more than half of whom resided in core urban areas) nested within 40 U.S. communities from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey, correlational and factor analyses were applied to determine appropriate groupings among eight key social capital indicators (social trust, informal social interactions, formal group involvement, religious group involvement, giving and volunteering, diversity of friendship networks, electoral political participation, and non-electoral political participation) at each of the community and individual levels. Multilevel logistic regression models were estimated to analyze the associations between the grouped social capital forms and individual self-rated health. Adjusting the three identified community-level social capital groupings/scales for one another and community- and individual-level sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, each of the odds ratios of fair/poor health associated with living in a community one standard deviation higher in the respective social capital form was modestly below one. Being high on all three (vs. none of the) scales was significantly associated with 18% lower odds of fair/poor health (odds ratio = 0.82, 95% confidence interval = 0.69-0.98). Adding individual-level social capital variables to the model attenuated two of the three community-level social capital associations, with a few of the former characteristics appearing to be moderately significantly protective of health. We further observed several significant interactions between community-level social capital and one's proximity to core urban areas, individual-level race/ethnicity, gender, and social capital. Overall, our results suggest primarily beneficial yet modest health effects of key summary forms of community social capital, and heterogeneity in some of these effects by urban context and population subgroup.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Of the 37 methodologically most rigorous studies, 21 (57%) reported significant positive relationships between R/S and SRH.
“Of the 37 methodologically most rigorous studies, 21 (57%) reported significant positive relationships between R/S and SRH [503, 508–527], whereas three (8%) found the opposite [528–530].”
From Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications (2012) · cites this paper as [509]
Of the 29 best social support studies, 27 (93%) reported significant positive relationships.
“Of the 29 best studies, 27 (93%) reported significant positive relationships [82, 267–274].”
From Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications (2012) · cites this paper as [274]
The Introduction (page unavailable) discusses literature linking social capital to better health, and the Results (page unavailable) report this paper’s own associations. Neither gives a tally of 29 studies or says that 27 (93%) found significant positive relationships. Searches for the quoted numbers and for a review of social-support studies found no matching passage in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community
(2000) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.38-2454 · Cited by 28,717 · see citing works
Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology
Portes, A. (1998) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.1 · Cited by 12,037 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Our finding of a significant positive interaction between individual-level trust and the community-level scale that included trust is consistent with prior empirical evidence,(9) and compatible with the notion that social capital may produce benefits for some individuals while engendering Bdownsides^ among others.(16)…”
Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies.
Idler, E. L., & Benyamini, Y. (1997) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.2307/2955359 · Cited by 8,598 · see citing works
Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action
Lin, N. (2001) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815447 · Cited by 4,535 · see citing works
Social capital a theory of social structure and action
Lin, N. (2001) · Cited by 4,456 · see citing works
The social context of well–being
Helliwell, J. F., & Putnam, R. D. (2004) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1522 · Cited by 2,504 · see citing works
Social Cohesion, Social Capital, and Health
Kawachi, I. I., & Berkman, L. F. (2000) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195083316.003.0008 · Cited by 1,812 · see citing works
Self-citationMeasuring social capital within health surveys: key issues
Trudy Harpham, C. (2002) · Health Policy and Planning · doi:10.1093/heapol/17.1.106 · Cited by 1,020 · see citing works
(2002) · doi:10.1093/0195150899.001.0001 · Cited by 959 · see citing works
A glossary for multilevel analysis
Roux, A. V. D. (2002) · Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.56.8.588 · Cited by 673 · see citing works
Social Trust and Self-Rated Health in US Communities: a Multilevel Analysis
Subramanian, S. V. (2002) · Journal of Heredity · doi:10.1093/jurban/79.suppl_1.s21 · Cited by 548 · see citing works
Commentary: Reconciling the three accounts of social capital
Kawachi, I. I. (2004) · International Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.1093/ije/dyh177 · Cited by 543 · see citing works
Self-citationImproved Approximations for Multilevel Models with Binary Responses
Goldstein, H., & Rasbash, J. (1996) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (Statistics in Society) · doi:10.2307/2983328 · Cited by 537 · see citing works
A User's Guide to MLwiN version 2.0
Rasbash, J., Steele, F., Browne, W. J., & Goldstein, H. (2004) · Bristol Research (University of Bristol) · Cited by 457 · see citing works
Kim, D. J., Subramanian, S. V., & Kawachi, I. I. (2006) · Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.2005.038281 · Cited by 418 · see citing works
Self-citationPutnam, R. D., & Goss, K. A. (2002) · doi:10.1093/0195150899.003.0001 · Cited by 176 · see citing works
Families and Health: the Negative Side of Social Ties
Burg, M. M., & Seeman, T. E. (1994) · Annals of Behavioral Medicine · doi:10.1093/abm/16.2.109 · Cited by 163 · see citing works
Encyclopedia of Health and Behavior
Anderson, N. H. (2004) · Sage eBooks · doi:10.4135/9781412952576 · Cited by 154 · see citing works
Vlahov, D. (2005) · Journal of Urban Health · doi:10.1093/jurban/jti001 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Vlahov D, Galea S, Freudenberg N. The urban health Badvantage^. J Urban Health. 2005;82:1-4.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications
Koenig, H. G. (2012) · ISRN Psychiatry · doi:10.5402/2012/278730 · Cited by 2,423 · see citing works
“[518] D.”
BackgroundBonanno, G. A., Romero, S. A., & Klein, S. I. (2015) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2015.992677 · Cited by 551 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kim, D., & Kawachi, I.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kim, Daniel
- Venue
- Journal of Urban Health
- Published
- 2006-06-30
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 813-826
- ISSN
- 0028-7091 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-3460
- 1468-2869
- PMC
- PMC2438597
- OpenAlex
- W2043113562
- Cited by
- 230
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 8.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of Urban Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Capital and Networks
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Community Health and Development
- Keywords
- social capital, self-rated health, community social capital, social trust, informal social interaction, volunteering, political participation, urban neighborhoods, race and ethnicity, gender differences, health disparities
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Health Status, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Politics, Sex Factors, Social Support, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Urban Population, Volunteers, Logistic Models, Community Networks, Trust, Racial Groups
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
