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Does Social Capital explain Neighbourhood Heterogeneity in Health Outcomes among Older Adults in India?

Jyoti Chaudhary, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
S.P. Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

Social Capital theory is increasingly being looked at as a valuable paradigm to understand if community characteristics influence health behaviors and outcomes. This requires an understanding of the forms in which social capital manifests and the levels at which it operates. Employing hierarchical modeling to SAGE (Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health) India data, we attempt to estimate the extent of neighborhood variation in health outcomes of older adults that can be explained with social capital. Also, the association between different forms of social capital (constructed based on Richard Carpiano’s framework) and health outcomes are examined. Results show that community-level social capital variables collectively explain 12.81 percent unexplained neighborhood variation in self-rated health, 2.5 percent variation in psychological wellbeing, and 11.32 percent variation in ability to perform activities of daily living respectively. Also, we find several forms of social capital to be associated with health outcomes among older adults. The findings highlight the role social capital plays in serving as a coping mechanism for older adults to survive deteriorating health and social exclusion and calls for conscious investment in building social capital.

Keywords: Neighbourhood/contextual effect analysis, Older adults, Health and morbidity, Multi-level modeling

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P16.