Department of Social Sciences, Oslo University College, Oslo, Norway.
Sociol Health Illn. 2010 Nov;32(7):1102-19. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2010.01270.x.
The aim of the article is to examine whether and to what degree the unequal distribution of social capital in the population explains the relationship between socioeconomic position and health in Norway. Theoretical insight and empirical evidence seem to suggest that social capital mediates the effect of socioeconomic position on health outcomes. However, only a few studies have addressed this question and those that have done so have used few and simple indicators of social capital. This study is based on a nationwide cross-sectional survey (N = 3190) commissioned by Statistics Norway. The survey was designed to cover a comprehensive set of variables measuring different aspects of the theoretical construct of social capital. Two health outcomes, self-perceived health and longstanding illness, were analysed. The results showed that the mediating role of social capital between socioeconomic position and health was negligible for both health outcomes. After controlling for socio-demographic variables and socioeconomic position, only neighbourhood satisfaction and generalised trust showed a significant association with self-perceived health, whereas none of the social capital variables had any significant association with longstanding illness. Some theoretical and methodological implications of the results are discussed.
本文旨在探讨社会资本在挪威人口中的不平等分配是否以及在何种程度上解释了社会经济地位与健康之间的关系。理论观点和实证证据似乎表明，社会资本在社会经济地位对健康结果的影响中起中介作用。然而，只有少数研究探讨了这个问题，而且这些研究使用的社会资本指标也很少且简单。本研究基于挪威统计局委托进行的一项全国性横断面调查（N=3190）。该调查旨在涵盖一系列衡量社会资本理论结构不同方面的变量。分析了两个健康结果，即自我感知健康和长期患病。结果表明，社会资本在社会经济地位和健康之间的中介作用对于这两个健康结果都可以忽略不计。在控制了社会人口统计学变量和社会经济地位后，只有邻里满意度和普遍信任与自我感知健康呈显著关联，而社会资本变量与长期患病均无显著关联。讨论了结果的一些理论和方法学意义。
