-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Stephen J Kunitz, Commentary: Comments on the diversity in associations between community social capital and health, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 37, Issue 6, December 2008, Pages 1393–1394, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyn203
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
The paper on ‘The diversity of associations between community social capital and health’ raises two issues that I should like to address briefly.1 The first has to do with the definition of social capital used by the authors. With the exception of one question—‘to what extent are you involved in the livability of your neighborhood?’—none gets at the phenomenon of civic participation that is central to Putnam's concept of social capital (http://www.bowlingalone.com/data.htm.). Indeed, almost half the indicators that go into his composite measure of social capital have to do with the pervasiveness of voluntary associations. Nor do any of the measures deal directly with trust, which is another key part of his concept. On the other hand, several of the items in Putnam's Index of Social Capital have to do with informal sociability (e.g. amount of time spent visiting with friends), which is more nearly akin to the items in the inventory used by van Hooijdonk and colleagues.
