Social capital critical appraisal example

For the class this week, please read the two articles and prepare the following discussion topics.

For each article,

1. What is the definition of social capital? What are the differences between individual-level social capital and commuity-level social capital? 

2. How did the study measure social capital? (i.e., what is the unit of analysis? what are the items they used to measure social capital?)

3. What are the study results? Please read the tables and figures and discuss the findings.

4. What are the study limitation and policy implications?

 

 

	YCC1	YCC2
Definition	SC is a conceptual tool that offers insights into social determinants of health.	Social capital is relational, and based on the resources people can access through others.
Individual vs community level	Individual social capital refers to concepts such as one’s network size, frequency of interpersonal communication, and informal social engagement. Social capital measured at the contextual level refers to resources available via membership in a broader community.	Individual approach emphasizes individuals’ experienced situations, and how they perceive the access they and their family have to certain resources through their social network. Studying group level social capital aggregates the individual perceptions of social capital to a contextual level. The group level measure emphasizes how being part of a larger social structure can affect individual health behavior.
Unit of analysis	Individual County	Individual Neighborhood
Items used	Individual social capital: neighborhood trust (“Generally speaking, would you say that you can trust all the people, most of the people, some of the people, or none of the people in your neighborhood?“), neighbor interaction (“In the past month, how often did you talk with any of your neighbors?“), civic engagement/volunteering (“In the past month, did you spend any time volunteering for any organization or association, or not?“), and remote contact with family and friends (“In the past month, how often did you communicate with friends and family by phone, text, email, app, or using the Internet?“).   County-level social capital is measured using aggregated individual-level survey responses and the U.S. government-sponsored Social Capital Index (SCI) consisting of 4 subindices and 10 variables (in parentheses below) based on data from various sources collected between 2006 and 2016, primarily from 2013 forward: family-unity (% births to unmarried women; % women currently married; % children with single parent), community-health (non-religious non-profit organizations per 1000; religious congregation per 1000; informal social engagement subindex), and institutional-health (Presidential election voting rate 2012 & 2016; mail-back census response rate; confidence in institutions subindex), and “collective efficacy” (violent crimes per 10,000).	Individual level social cohesion “How many of your neighbors know which family you belong to (know where you live)?” “Do your parents often talk about how the neighbors’ children are doing at school?“ “Do you hang out or do other activities with your neighbors?“ “Does your family hang out or do other activities with other families in your neighborhood?”   Social cohesion on the neighborhood level 4 from individual plus 3: “Do you like the environment of your neighborhood?”  “How many people in your neighborhood do you think know each other?” “Do you think people in your neighborhood are willing to help others or do they only care about themselves?”
Study results (main findings)	Informal-structural social capital (neighbor-interactions) negatively moderates the impact of restrictions; however, neither formal-structural (volunteering), cognitive (neighbor-trust), nor strong-tie social capital buffer restrictions.   After adjusting models for individual-level social capital, county social capital exerts independent-effects on psychological distress.   After adjusting for individual-level social capital, no dimension of contextual social capital is associated with the outcome.   Suggesting restrictions have a stronger positive association with psychological distress among individuals in high social capital counties. Among individuals in low social capital counties, restrictions have no association with distress. Benefit of living in high social capital counties declines as restrictions increase.   Conclusion: individuals’ social capital, especially neighbor connectivity, may moderate the harm that pandemic-related restrictions have on mental health.	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.   People may not be totally conscious of the fact that they are being part of a larger structure, such as a neighborhood, and experiencing the benefits from that structure.
Limitations	Reverse causality, risks of false positives.	Relation between social capital and health status should be interpreted with caution.
Policy implications	Neighbor connectivity should be improved.	Awareness of the level of community-level social capital should be improved.