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Health Promotion International Advance Access published online on August 27, 2009
Health Promotion International, doi:10.1093/heapro/dap028
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

Social capital does matter for adolescent health: evidence from the English HBSC study

Antony Morgan1,* and Bo J. A. Haglund2

1Child and Adolescent Health Research Unit, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 2Division of Social Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

* Corresponding author. E-mail: antony.morgan{at}nice.org.uk


  Abstract

Social capital has grown out of the recognition that health-related behaviours are shaped and constrained by a range of social and community contexts and that the ways in which an individual relates to social networks and communities has important effects on their health and well-being. Given the strong and complex inequalities that exist in adolescent health at both the national and international levels, social capital, acting a protective factor (or asset), may help reduce poor outcomes. The aim of this study was to measure and assess the relative importance of a range of social indicators representing the different domains of social capital on the health, wellbeing and health-related behaviours of young people. The study population was a random sample of 6425 school children aged 11–15 years old in 80 schools in England. Data were collected by a standardized questionnaire under supervised conditions in the classroom developed as part of the WHO Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC) study. This study has shown that social capital matters for young people's health, statistically significant relationships were found between the range of social capital indicators and the health and health-related outcomes selected for study. For example, young people with a low sense of family belonging and low involvement in the neighbourhood were almost twice as likely to report poor health (OR = 1.87 and 1.96, respectively). Low involvement in the neighbourhood was also highly associated with low consumption of fruit (OR = 2.48) and vegetables (OR = 2.62). Overall, however the strength of associations found varied across health behaviours and indicators of social capital and this requires further examination.

Key words: adolescent; health; health behaviour; social capital


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