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Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach
BACKGROUND: Little research has focused on the spatial distribution of social capital, despite social capital’s rising popularity in health research and policy. This study examines the neighborhood differences in social capital and the determinants that explain these differences. METHODS: Five compo...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3833648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24225005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-12-52 |
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author | Neutens, Tijs Vyncke, Veerle De Winter, Dieter Willems, Sara |
author_facet | Neutens, Tijs Vyncke, Veerle De Winter, Dieter Willems, Sara |
author_sort | Neutens, Tijs |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Little research has focused on the spatial distribution of social capital, despite social capital’s rising popularity in health research and policy. This study examines the neighborhood differences in social capital and the determinants that explain these differences. METHODS: Five components of neighborhood social capital are identified by means of factor and reliability analyses using data collected in the cross-sectional SWING study from 762 inhabitants in 42 neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Neighborhood differences in social capital are explored using hierarchical linear models with cross-level interactions. RESULTS: Significant neighborhood differences are found for social cohesion, informal social control and social support, but not for social leverage and generalized trust. Our findings suggest that neighborhood social capital depends on both characteristics of individuals living in the neighborhood (attachment to neighborhood) and characteristics of the neighborhood itself (deprivation and residential turnover). Our analysis further shows that neighborhood deprivation reinforces the negative effect of declining neighborhood attachment on social cohesion and informal social control. CONCLUSIONS: This study foregrounds the importance of contextual effects in encouraging neighborhood social capital. Given the importance of neighborhood-level characteristics, it can be anticipated social capital promoting initiatives are likely to be more effective when tailored to specific areas. Second, our analyses show that not all forms of social capital are influenced by contextual factors to the same extent, implying that changes in neighborhood characteristics are conducive to, say, trust while leaving social support unaffected. Finally, our analysis has demonstrated that complex interrelationships between individual- and neighborhood–level variables exist, which are often overlooked in current work. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3833648 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38336482013-11-20 Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach Neutens, Tijs Vyncke, Veerle De Winter, Dieter Willems, Sara Int J Health Geogr Research BACKGROUND: Little research has focused on the spatial distribution of social capital, despite social capital’s rising popularity in health research and policy. This study examines the neighborhood differences in social capital and the determinants that explain these differences. METHODS: Five components of neighborhood social capital are identified by means of factor and reliability analyses using data collected in the cross-sectional SWING study from 762 inhabitants in 42 neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Neighborhood differences in social capital are explored using hierarchical linear models with cross-level interactions. RESULTS: Significant neighborhood differences are found for social cohesion, informal social control and social support, but not for social leverage and generalized trust. Our findings suggest that neighborhood social capital depends on both characteristics of individuals living in the neighborhood (attachment to neighborhood) and characteristics of the neighborhood itself (deprivation and residential turnover). Our analysis further shows that neighborhood deprivation reinforces the negative effect of declining neighborhood attachment on social cohesion and informal social control. CONCLUSIONS: This study foregrounds the importance of contextual effects in encouraging neighborhood social capital. Given the importance of neighborhood-level characteristics, it can be anticipated social capital promoting initiatives are likely to be more effective when tailored to specific areas. Second, our analyses show that not all forms of social capital are influenced by contextual factors to the same extent, implying that changes in neighborhood characteristics are conducive to, say, trust while leaving social support unaffected. Finally, our analysis has demonstrated that complex interrelationships between individual- and neighborhood–level variables exist, which are often overlooked in current work. BioMed Central 2013-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3833648/ /pubmed/24225005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-12-52 Text en Copyright © 2013 Neutens et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Neutens, Tijs Vyncke, Veerle De Winter, Dieter Willems, Sara Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title | Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title_full | Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title_fullStr | Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title_full_unstemmed | Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title_short | Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach |
title_sort | neighborhood differences in social capital in ghent (belgium): a multilevel approach |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3833648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24225005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-12-52 |
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