Social capital and health promoting behaviors

From the previous research, it has been found that low income groups of people are situated in the socio-economically vulnerable circumstances. Low income groups' level of the health quality and degree of the health promoting behaviors are relatively low. Kim, Subramanian, and Kawachi, (2008) identified that low income groups’ vulnerable health level was attributed to a low practice degree of the health promoting behaviors. It was also reported that there is a negative relationship between income level and health risk behaviors such as smoking and drinking. In addition, it was found that the lower an income level was, the less people were likely to fulfill the healthy promoting behaviors including exercises and physical examinations. Generally, it is well known that individual’s health promoting behaviors are influenced by sociodemographic factors(gender, age, income, etc.), sociopsychological factors(self-efficacy, self-control, etc.), sociocultural factors(social supports from a family and colleagues) and communities’ environmental/political factors(places for the healthy life practice, town planning, etc.) (Sallis & Hovell, 1990). All the factors, except only for the socio-demographic factors, could be considered as kinds of social capital which affects individuals’ health conditions. WHO(1998) defined social capital as a process of building a social credibility, norms and networks as well as facilitating an adjustment and cooperation between individuals for the mutual interests. It may be possible that relational resources which are generated in that process have an impact on healthy life practice-related behaviors. Cassel(1976) and Cobb(1976) revealed that a lack of social network was a critical factor which increases a mortality, and they also found a causal relationship between a social relationship and health promoting behaviors. They argued that continuously-accumulated social relationship promotes an individual’s healthy life practice as they positively influence their sociopsychological mechanism. Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls(1997) pointed out that social capital has a positive impact on individual’s healthy life practice, especially, in socially cohesive communities in the sense that well-established public health services increase a community members’ accessibility to the service.  In a similar vein, several researchers(De Silva, 2006), who assumed social capital could be one determinant of the individual health, found that social capital had a positive impact on health in various aspects. First, social capital reduced a negative impact of stresses, second, social network enabled health information to be spread easily in communities, and at last, social capital had an effect of promoting healthy life practices as well as restraining health risk behaviors. From the point of a macro view, the relationship between social capital and health promoting behaviors can be summarized as follows: Since information of the benefits of the health promoting behaviors are more likely to be broadly distributed in the communities where have large amount of social capitals, those communities’ members' health promoting behaviors are more active than other communities. Also, in the case of communities maintaining a number of social capitals, overall society member’s health status can be high since consumption of the public health services such as vaccination and medical examination are encouraged by the communities.

 

1) Cassel, J. (1976). The contribution of the social environment to host resistance. American journal of epidemiology, 104(2), 107-123.

 

2) Cobb, S. (1976). Presidential Address-1976. Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosomatic medicine, 38(5), 300-314.

3) De Silva, M. (2006). Systematic review of the methods used in studies of social capital and mental health. Social capital and mental health, 39-67.

4) Kim, D., Subramanian, S. V., & Kawachi, I. (2008). Social capital and physical health. Social capital and health, 139-190.

5) Sallis, J. F., & Hovell, M. F. (1990). Determinants of exercise behavior. Exercise and sport sciences reviews, 18(1), 307-330.

 

6) Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277(5328), 918-924.