Abstract
AbstractThe present article aims to highlight methodological aspects related to understanding and conceptualising social capital for the purposes of population research as well as describing the key challenges in the harmonisation process of indicators of social capital. The study was conducted in the frame of the Ageing Trajectories of Health: Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies (ATHLOS) project. After a review of social capital theories developed in social science and a subsequent review of the documentation of 18 international cohorts, decision trees of the harmonisation of social variables were developed. The known-group validity was verified. The results focused on generalised trust, civic engagement and social participation are presented. The summary of the availability of any indicators of these concepts is classified in seven domains (generalised trust, political participation, religious participation, senior-specific participation, participation in sport groups, participation in volunteer/charity group activities, any participation) across surveys. The results of the analysis for known-group validity support the construct validity of the harmonised variables.
Highlights
No discussion about the patterns of healthy ageing can be considered complete without social determinants of health and wellbeing in ageing populations
Social capital in later life is considered a health resource and evidence suggests that different forms of this capital are positively related to self-rated health (e.g. Nummela et al, 2008; Ichida et al, 2009; Giordano et al, 2012; Koutsogeorgou et al, 2015; Boen et al, 2020; Pan and Wu, 2020; Kim et al, 2021), physical and social wellbeing (e.g. Cramm et al, 2012; Boen et al, 2020) as well as mental wellbeing (e.g. Nyqvist et al, 2013; Chipps and Jarvis, 2016; Yu et al, 2018)
After a review of social capital theories and a subsequent review of the documentation of all cohorts, results focused on generalised trust, civic engagement and social participation are presented
Summary
No discussion about the patterns of healthy ageing can be considered complete without social determinants of health and wellbeing in ageing populations. Among these social determinants, social capital is frequently cited. There has been increased interest in research on the health impact of social capital and a growing body of studies has demonstrated that this factor is positively related to health and wellbeing, especially in older people. It was observed that community-level civic participation moderated the association between depressive symptoms and recent widowhood, as well as living alone among men (Nakagomi et al, 2020). Community-level civic participation was associated with lower depressive symptoms in both men and women. Low social capital at the community level was proven to be a determinant of poor quality of life (Nilsson et al, 2006), while neighbourhood social capital was significantly associated with an older person’s good quality of life (Lane et al, 2020)
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