THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON MENTAL HEALTH AMONG JAPANESE OLDER PEOPLE: COMPARISON BETWEEN RURAL AND URBAN AREA

摘要

Introduction: Social capital (SC) has been said to have the positive and negative effects on mental health among older people. This mixed effect can be due to the regional differences (e.g. national economic status, ethnic diversity). In addition, the effects of SC have been considered to vary depending on the homo/heterogeneity of neighborhoods. Purpose: To investigate the effects of SC on mental health of older Japanese living at rural and urban area. Methods: We analyzed the cross-sectional data from 1349 community-dwelling Japanese older people (699 women, mean age=74.3 ± 5.0 years), who participated in the SONIC study. As individual-level SC, we measured generalized trust and social participation as indices of SC. As neighborhood-level SC, we calculated the mean value of generalized trust and the percentages of social participation at each neighborhood. Results: Bayesian hierarchical liner modelling indicated that individual-level generalized trust was associated with better mental health of people living at both areas. Individual-level social participation was associated with better mental health of people living at urban area. Furthermore, neighborhood-level generalized trust was not associated with mental health of people living at both areas. Lastly, neighborhood-level social participation was associated with better mental health of people living at rural area. Discussion: These results suggest that high neighborhood-level social participation, rather than neighborhood-level generalized trust, can be helpful for individuals living at homogeneous rural area, providing opportunities to extend individual networks. Individual-level social participation can be helpful and obligatory for individuals living in rural area with strong social ties.