Residents living in communities with higher civic participation report higher self-rated health

PLoS One. 2020 Oct 23;15(10):e0241221. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241221. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

It has been shown that community-level social capital may affect residents' health. The present mixed ecological study assesses the evidence for an association between the community-level social capital and the individual level of self-rated health. The Hakui City Health Interview Survey targeted 15,242 people aged 40 years and older from 11 communities. Among them, 6578 residents responded to the questionnaire (response rate, 43.2%). We examined whether the community-level social capital (general trust, norm, and civic participation) was associated with the individual level of self-rated health. Overall, 1919 (29.1%) answers of self-rated poor health were identified. Community-level civic participation was negatively associated with poor self-rated health after adjusting for individual demographic factors, individual social capitals, and community-level economic status, whereas community-level general trust, and norm were not significant. The findings suggest the importance of fostering communities with high civic participation to reduce the poor health status of residents.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Community Participation / statistics & numerical data*
  • Educational Status
  • Female
  • Health Status*
  • Humans
  • Japan
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Residence Characteristics / statistics & numerical data*
  • Self Report / statistics & numerical data
  • Social Capital*
  • Social Class

Grants and funding

This study was supported in part by Kanazawa University Prioritized Research Fund and a Grant for research received from Hakui city. Moeko Noguchi-Shinohara has belonged to an endowment department, supported with an unrestricted grant from RICHO Co. Ltd. since April 2019. The sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.