Abstract
BackgroundThe persistent lack of evidence on causal mechanisms between social capital and health threatens the credibility of the social capital—health association. The present study aims to address this ongoing problem by investigating whether health behaviours (i.e. smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity) mediate the prospective relation between workplace reciprocity and future sickness absence.MethodsA cohort of 24,402 Belgian employees was followed up during 12 months for sickness absence. Workplace reciprocity was measured with four indicators—colleague help, colleague interest, supervisor help, and supervisor concern. Three types of multilevel mediation models were applied.ResultsOverall, workplace reciprocity negatively related to high sickness absence (≥ 10 days) mainly independently from health behaviours. Uniquely, colleague interest positively related to smoking (OR = 1.058, 95% CI = 1.019, 1.098) and smoking in turn, positively related to sickness absence (OR = 1.074, 95% CI = 1.047, 1.101). No behavioural pathways could be identified between company-level reciprocity and sickness absence, and company-level health-related behaviours did not mediate the relation between company-level reciprocity and individual sickness absence.ConclusionsThese results suggest that both social capital and health behaviours are relevant for employee health, but health behaviours seem not to be the underlying explanatory mechanism between workplace reciprocity and health.
Highlights
It is widely recognized that beyond the individual, social environments such as neighbourhoods and workplaces may promote or constrain the practice of healthy lifestyles that lead to health and illness [1]
The present study aims to address this ongoing problem by investigating whether health behaviours mediate the prospective relation between workplace reciprocity and future sickness absence
Workplace reciprocity negatively related to high sickness absence ( 10 days) mainly independently from health behaviours
Summary
It is widely recognized that beyond the individual, social environments such as neighbourhoods and workplaces may promote or constrain the practice of healthy lifestyles that lead to health and illness [1]. Secondary data-analysis is common practice in scientific research, but as a result, researchers tend to use data obtained for other purposes rather than using variables designed for measuring social capital [8]. This limitation could feed the impression that some dimensions (e.g. trust and social participation) are more related to health outcomes than other less popular indicators such as reciprocity. It is considered as a key part of the concept of social capital [9,10,11], reciprocity remains misunderstood, undertheorized, and rarely measured [12]. Example items are: “Do you often suffer from headaches?; Do you often suffer from back pain?; Do you often feel tired? Do you occasionally suffer from pain in the chest or stomach area?”
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