Social capital and physical health
Essential readings
D’Hombres R., Rocco L., Shurcke M., Mckee M., (2010). Does social capital determine health? Evidence from eight transition countries. Health Economics 19, 56-74.
There is growing interest in the role of social relationships in explaining patterns of health. We...
Folland, S. (2007). Does community social capital contribute to population health? Social Science and Medicine 64, 2342–2354
Robert Putnam showed that a social capital index, created as a weighted sum of 14 variables chosen...
Folland, S. (2006). Value of life and behavior toward health risks: an interpretation of social capital. Health Economics 15 (2), 159–171.
An individual assessing a risky job can be understood as a public good. He and each of his valued...
Important readings
Kawachi I., Kennedy B. P., Glass R., (1999). Social capital and self-rated health: a contextual analysis. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1187–1193.
OBJECTIVES: Social capital consists of features of social organization--such as trust between...
Kawachi I., Kennedy B. P., Lochner K., Prothrow-Stith D., (1997). Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health 87, 1491–1498.
Objectives Recent studies have demonstrated that income inequality is related to mortality rates...
Kawachi, I., Subramanian, S.V.; Kim, Daniel (Eds.) (2008). Social Capital and Health. Springer
As interest in social capital has grown over the past decade—particularly in public...
Costa, D., Kahn, M. (2007). Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps. American Economic Review 97 (4): 1467-1487
Twenty-seven percent of the Union Army prisoners captured July 1863 or later died in captivity. At...
Fiorillo, D., Sabatini, F. (2011). Structural social capital and health in Italy. MPRA Paper 32392.
This paper presents the first empirical assessment of the causal relationship between social...
Rocco, L., Fumagalli, E., Suhrcke, M. (2011). From social capital to health - and back. University of York Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Paper 11/21.
We assess the causal relationship between health and social capital, measured by generalized trust...
Folland, S., Rocco, L. (2014). The Economics of Social Capital and Health A Conceptual and Empirical Roadmap. Washington, D.C.: World Scientific.
This book edited by Sherman Folland and Lorenzo Rocco defines the field of social capital and...
Reading list archive
Alesina, A., Giuliano, P. (2014). Family ties. In S. Durlauf and P. Aghion (Eds). Handbook of Economic Growth. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
We study the role of the most primitive institution in society: the family. Its organization and...
Altschuler, A., Somkin, C. P., Adler, N. E. (2004). Local services and amenities, neighborhood social capital, and health. Social Science and Medicine 59, 1219–1229.
Recent work on health and place has examined the impact of the environment on health. At the local...
Araya, R., Dunstan, F., Playle, R., Thomas, H., Palmer, S., Lewis, G. (2006). Perceptions of social capital and the built environment and mental health. Social Science and Medicine 62 (12), 3072-3083.
There has been much speculation about a possible association between the social and built...
Borgonovi, F. (2008). Doing well by doing good. The relationship between formal volunteering and self-reported health and happiness. Social Science and Medicine 66, 2321-2334.
In this paper, we examine whether engaging in voluntary work leads to greater well-being, as...
Brotherton, S. P. (2010). Review Essay of Social Relations and the Cuban Health Miracle, by Elizabeth Kath. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 40 (4), 459-460
Social Relations and the Cuban Health Miracle is Elizabeth Kath’s attempt to explain the...
Brown, T. T., Scheffler, R. M., Seo, S., Reed, M. (2006). The empirical relationship between community social capital and the demand for cigarettes. Health Economics 15, 1159–1172.
We show that the proportion of community social capital attributable to religious groups is...
Carlson P. (1998). Self-perceived health in East and West Europe: another European health divide. Social Science and Medicine 46, 1355–1366.
There is a great, and possibly also a growing, difference in public health between the central/...
Carlson P. (2004). The European health divide: a matter of financial or social capital? Social Science and Medicine 59, 1985–1992.
The ‘European east–west health divide’ has been documented both for mortality...
Carpiano, R., Hystad, P. (2011). Sense of community belonging in health surveys: What social capital is it measuring? Health and Place 17 (2), 606-617
Canadian national health surveys regularly ask respondents to rate their sense of belonging to...
Cattell, V. (2012). Poverty, Community and Health Co-operation and the Good Society.
Despite plentiful evidence on poverty and reduced health chances and on the benefits of co-...
Costa, D., Kahn, M. (2010). Health, Wartime Stress, and Unit Cohesion: Evidence from Union Army Veterans. Demography 47(1): 45-66.
We fi nd that Union Army veterans of the American Civil War who faced greater wartime stress (as...
Costa, D., L. Kahn, M., Roudiez, C., Wilson, S. (2016). Persistent Social Networks: Civil War Veterans who Fought Together Co-Locate in Later Life. NBER Working Paper No. 22397
At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar...
Costa-Font, J., Mladovsky, P. (2008). Social capital and the social formation of health-related preferences and behaviours. Health Economics, Policy and Law 3, 413-427
Social capital appears to be an important determinant of health production and health utilization...
De Silva, M. J., Huttly, S. R., Harpham, T., Kenward, M. G. (2007). Social capital and mental health: A comparative analysis of four low income countries. Social Science and Medicine 64, 5–20.
Women and the poor are disproportionately affected by common mental disorders (CMD), and women in...