Social capital, income inequality, and self-rated health in 45 countries

There has been growing interest in the relationship between the social environment and health. Among the concepts that have emerged over the past decade to examine this relationship are socio-economic inequality and social capital. Using data from the World Values Survey and the World Bank, we teste...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 2008-01, Vol.66 (1), p.43-56
Main Authors: Mansyur, Carol, Amick, Benjamin C., Harrist, Ronald B., Franzini, Luisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude to Health
Biological and medical sciences
Compositional vs. contextual effects
Cross-national
Cross-national analysis
Cross-Sectional Studies
Cultural Capital
Databases, Factual
Economic models
Female
Global Health
Health
Health Status
Health Surveys
Humans
Income
Income Inequality
Inequality
Inequality Cross-national Multi-level modelling Social capital Compositional vs. contextual effects Self-rated health
Male
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Multi-level modelling
Personal income
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Self Concept
Self Evaluation
Self-perception
Self-rated health
Social capital
Social Class
Social Conditions
Social Environment
Social Support
Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomic status
Survey data
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Summary:There has been growing interest in the relationship between the social environment and health. Among the concepts that have emerged over the past decade to examine this relationship are socio-economic inequality and social capital. Using data from the World Values Survey and the World Bank, we tested the hypothesis that self-rated health is affected by social capital and income inequality cross-nationally. The merit of our approach was that we used multilevel methods in a larger and more diverse sample of countries than used previously. Our results indicated that, for a large number of diverse countries, commonly used measures of social capital and income inequality had strong compositional effects on self-rated health, but inconsistent contextual effects, depending on the countries included. Cross-level interactions suggested that contextual measures can moderate the effect of compositional measures on self-rated health. Sensitivity tests indicated that effects varied in different subsets of countries. Future research should examine country-specific characteristics, such as differences in cultural values or norms, which may influence the relationships between social capital, income inequality, and health.
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.08.015