Social Capital and Mental Health in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis

1 Organisation for the Promotion of Project Research, Shimane University, Matsue, Japan, 2 Department of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, Shimane University School of Medicine, Izumo, Japan, 3 Division of Public Policy, School of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan, 4 Department of General Studies, Akashi National College of Technology, Akashi, Japan, 5 Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of AmericaTsuyoshi Hamano¹^,²^*, Yoshikazu Fujisawa³, Yu Ishida⁴, S. V. Subramanian⁵, Ichiro Kawachi⁵, Kuninori Shiwaku²

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Background

A national cross-sectional survey was conducted in Japan. This is because the growing recognition of the social determinants of health has stimulated research on social capital and mental health. In recent years, systematic reviews have found that social capital may be a useful factor in the prevention of mental illness. Despite these studies, evidence on the association between social capital and mental health is limited as there have been few empirical discussions that adopt a multilevel framework to assess whether social capital at the ecological level is associated with individual mental health. The aim of this study was to use the multilevel approach to investigate the association between neighborhood social capital and mental health after taking into account potential individual confounders./.../

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Tuesday, October 19, 2010