Turner R J, Marino F
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Ontario.
J Health Soc Behav. 1994 Sep;35(3):193-212.
Despite a very large and growing literature demonstrating the significance of social support for health and well-being, surprisingly little is known about the social distribution of this crucial resource. This paper presents data on the distribution of social support and support resources across social class, marital status, age and gender, with the aims of contributing toward an understanding of the impact of social structures on processes of social support, and of assessing the hypothesis that epidemiological variations in mental health arise partially from social support differences. The epidemiology of perceived social support was found to correspond closely to the epidemiology of psychological distress and disorder. The single exception involved gender, where a positive rather than negative relationship was observed, with women demonstrating the highest levels of both social support and psychological distress. The observed patterns of variation in social support link this significant adaptive resource to one's locations in the social structure and reinforce the conclusion that it represents a promising intervention target. The practical importance of these results, however, are not matched by theoretical significance. Except in the case of marital status, our findings largely discount the hypothesis that the social distribution of mental health is partially attributable to social support differences.
尽管有大量且不断增加的文献表明社会支持对健康和幸福的重要性，但令人惊讶的是，对于这一关键资源的社会分布却知之甚少。本文呈现了关于社会支持及支持资源在社会阶层、婚姻状况、年龄和性别方面分布的数据，旨在有助于理解社会结构对社会支持过程的影响，并评估心理健康的流行病学差异部分源于社会支持差异这一假设。研究发现主观感受到的社会支持的流行病学情况与心理困扰和障碍的流行病学情况密切相关。唯一的例外涉及性别，在这方面观察到的是一种正相关而非负相关关系，即女性在社会支持和心理困扰方面的水平都最高。观察到的社会支持变化模式将这一重要的适应性资源与个人在社会结构中的位置联系起来，并强化了这样一个结论：它是一个有前景的干预目标。然而，这些结果的实际重要性与理论意义并不匹配。除了婚姻状况这一情况外，我们的研究结果在很大程度上否定了心理健康的社会分布部分归因于社会支持差异这一假设。
