Neighborhood social capital and adolescents' individual health development.

Abstract

Neighborhood social capital is argued to influence individual health. However, many studies do not make the distinction between individual level and group level social capital. Furthermore, many studies on this topic are cross-sectional studies based in Western countries. In this study I will examine health and neighborhood social capital by measuring social capital on both the individual and the aggregated neighborhood level. Data from two waves of the Taiwan Youth Project give a longitudinal perspective into the development of health of adolescents from northern Taiwan. The data consist of 2207 adolescents, with measures at ages 14 and 15. The adolescents are clustered within 39 neighborhoods. The results show that adolescents' individual level neighborhood social capital is related to their baseline health status, but not to changes in health status. Only neighborhood level social capital is related to changes in health status. More social capital in the neighborhood is related to positive changes in health status. To test whether the effect of neighborhood social capital changes, depending on how important the neighborhood context is in someone's life, I studied differential effects for adolescents with more or less alternative contacts outside of the neighborhood and the years adolescents resided in the neighborhood. The original results were not affected by these factors, suggesting that the relation between neighborhood social capital and health is pervasive, despite individuals' integration in the neighborhood.