Roth Adam R, Railey Ashley F, Peng Siyun
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Socius. 2025 Jan-Dec;11. doi: 10.1177/23780231251327540. Epub 2025 Apr 1.
Geographic disparities in Alzheimer's disease are often attributed to sociodemographic differences across communities or unequal access to opportunity structures whose use serves as protective mechanisms. Yet limited research considers the social dynamics between residents that are enabled by these opportunity structures. The authors adopt a population-level approach to evaluate how ethnoracial diversity and opportunity structures function jointly to facilitate the development of bridging social capital (i.e., mixing of dissimilar people) which is hypothesized to predict Alzhiemer's disease mortality rates. Upon analyzing Alzheimer's disease mortality records from 2,469 U.S. counties, the authors find that counties whose sociodemographic composition and opportunity structures combine to encourage bridging capital potential exhibit lower mortality rates than counties with fewer such opportunities. These findings consistently appear in environments whose composition and structure are conducive to social mixing (i.e., workhoods and civic organizations) but inconsistently in environments that are less conducive to social mixing (i.e., residential neighborhoods). The findings highlight the importance of structural factors that create opportunities for social capital.
阿尔茨海默病的地域差异通常归因于不同社区之间的社会人口学差异，或获得机会结构的不平等，而利用这些机会结构可起到保护作用。然而，仅有有限的研究考虑了由这些机会结构促成的居民之间的社会动态。作者采用人口层面的方法，来评估种族多样性和机会结构如何共同发挥作用，以促进桥梁型社会资本（即不同人群的融合）的发展，而这种社会资本被认为可以预测阿尔茨海默病的死亡率。在分析了美国2469个县的阿尔茨海默病死亡率记录后，作者发现，社会人口构成和机会结构相结合以鼓励桥梁资本潜力的县，其死亡率低于此类机会较少的县。这些发现始终出现在其构成和结构有利于社会融合的环境中（即工作社区和公民组织），而在不利于社会融合的环境中（即居民区）则不一致。这些发现凸显了创造社会资本机会的结构因素的重要性。
