POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL FACTORS WITH HEALTH

• Published in: Innovation in aging Vol. 1; no. suppl_1; p. 1251
• Main Authors: Kabayama, M., Watanabe, C., Ryuno, H., Kamide, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: US Oxford University Press 01.07.2017
• Subjects: Abstracts
• ISSN: 2399-5300; 2399-5300
• DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igx004.4547

It is critical to develop and strengthen community-based support to sustain super aged society. Because accumulating evidence suggests social capital is an important social determinant of health, the success of a sustainable society may depend on the development of social capital in the community. This paper examines the variety in individual cognitive social capital by factor analysis and investigates the association between the detected sub-dimensions of an individual’s cognitive social capital and their health in community dwelling older Japanese. We distributed self-administered postal questionnaires to people aged 60 to 89 who were randomly selected from the residential registration in a mid-sized urban city in western Japan. In the questionnaire, we asked participants to answer questions about their cognitive social capital in their main activity group. We created a set of 12 questions asking about cognitive social capital that was developed from previous studies. Factor analysis identified three components from these twelve questions on cognitive social capital, which we named “harmonious”, “hierarchic”, and “diversity”. Multiple regression analysis adjusted for gender, age, marriage status, equivalent income and present illness revealed the following to be independent factors associated with two health outcomes measured by the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36), Japanese version 1.2: “harmonious” social capital was positively associated with physical and mental health, “hierarchic” was negatively associated with mental health, and “diversity” was positively associated with mental health. For the practical application of promoting a healthier society, it is important to consider both positive and negative sides of social capital.