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How Forms of Social Capital Can Be an Asset for Promoting Health Equity

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Health Assets in a Global Context

Abstract

This chapter argues that societies that support and produce governments with a commitment to equity will be characterised by high levels of social capital including social cohesion. Commitment to action on the social determinants of health to increase equity in health status requires a proactive policy approach from governments and that governments demonstrating this proactivity will be those that have a value commitment to equity. This chapter will examine how the ways we conceive and develop social policy has a dramatic effect upon health outcomes and the extent to which they are distributed across society. The chapter starts by examining the relationships between different types of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking) and individual and community health and well-being outcomes, (including the extent of equity). It then considers why more equitable societies are higher in forms of social capital and the extent to which the causality of the relationship is mutually re-enforcing. The main argument in the chapter is that despite conceptual difficulties associated with social capital, it does offer a way to insert a social aspect in to debates about public health policies. Finally the chapter considers the importance of government policies that create an environment in which equitable health and well-being outcomes are likely and the roles of different forms of social capital in bringing these about.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cross government initiatives of this type are discussed extensively in Baum (2002).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Paul Laris for thoughtful comments on a draft of this chapter. Also thanks to the Australian Research Council for funding the project Social capital and public policy: how social capital can inform public sector interventions to improve health and reduce inequalities (project ID LP0454907) which has provided the opportunity to reflect on the role of social capital in reducing health inequities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    Fran Baum

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  1. Fran Baum
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Correspondence to Fran Baum .

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  1. National Institute for Health & Clinical, 71 High Holborn St, London, WC1V 6NA, United Kingdom

    Antony Morgan

  2. Health Action Partnership International, Tavistock House (Entrance D), London, WC1H 9LG, United Kingdom

    Maggie Davies

  3. WHO Regional Office for Europe, WHO European Office for Investment for H, Campo S. Stefano, Venice, 2847I-3012, Italy

    Erio Ziglio

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Baum, F. (2010). How Forms of Social Capital Can Be an Asset for Promoting Health Equity. In: Morgan, A., Davies, M., Ziglio, E. (eds) Health Assets in a Global Context. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5921-8_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5921-8_16

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