“Mår vi bättre av att lita på varandra?” En kvantitativ studie om sambandet mellan socialt kapital och hälsa i 49 västsvenska kommuner

Abstract

In the past decade there has been an overwhelming increase of studies about social capital and health. These studies have found that the level of social capital positively affects health. However the links between social capital and health have mostly been discussed on a theoretical level and are still unclear. One of the possible explanations that have been discussed is that knowledge about what is good and bad for ones health is spread faster in communities with a higher level of trust, according to the Theory of Diffusion of Innovation. This study shows that the level of trust is positively associated with self-rated health in 49 Swedish municipalities even after adjustment for some important confounders. However the result of the analysis indicates that the link between trust and self-rated health probably is not health knowledge as previous studies have proposed.