社会资本与身心健康——概念辨析基础上的关系再检验

Social Capital and Population Health:An Empirical Retest Based on Relevant Concepts Discrimination

社会资本与健康研究领域存在核心概念界定不清与理论解释欠缺两大不足。文章在社会网络的视角下对社会资本、社会凝聚和社会支持三个相互杂糅的概念进行辨析区分,并在此基础上以调查数据实证检验了社会资本对身心健康的作用效果与影响机制。结果显示,在控制社会凝聚和社会支持作用的条件下,社会资本依然对自评健康和心理健康存在显著的独立影响,但其对两种健康在影响因素和影响方向上呈现一些差异。其中,网络规模和网络顶端对自评健康和心理健康都具有显著的正向作用,而心理健康同时还受到网络差异的负向影响。从这个角度而言,社会资本对个体身心健康的影响并不必然是积极正向的。

There are two main defects in the study of social capital and health： the first one is the ambiguous definition of social capital,and the second one is the lack of theoretical explanation on mechanism. From the viewpoint of social network,this paper distinguishes social capital from social cohesion and social supports at the theoretical level,then test the effect and mechanism of social capital on physical and mental health with survey data. The result shows that social capital has an independent and significant effect on health when social cohesion and social support were statistically controlled,but there are some difference in influent factors and affected direction between the effect of social capital on physical health and mental health. More specially,the size and ceiling of network have the significantly positive effect on physical and mental health,meanwhile mental health was negatively impacted by network diversity. In conclusion,the effect of social capital on health are not necessarily positive.