The association of social capital and health has gained much research attention and interest during the past decade. Many a study has demonstrated that a higher social capital is associated with a better population health state including lower total or disease related mortality or more benign health related behaviors. However, most studies reported were using secondary data analyses of survey data. Though there are many ongoing studies and application of social capital survey worldwide, it still lack of consensus to define social capital and its standard instrument to measure it. There is also lack of empirical studies to investigate the causal relationship and mechanism how social capital could affect the individual or population health. Few empirical studies concerning social capital have been done in Taiwan. Hence, this study has two major aims, first in phase I study, to develop and test psychometric properties of a social capital instrument for measuring social capital among adults Taiwan¡¦s indigenous people. The specific aims are to identify the content dimensions for the indicators of social capital and evaluate the internal consistency and construct validity of this instrument. Second, in phase II, this study investigated the relationship between community social capital and physical-mental health at individual level using the social capital instrument. We also study whether social capital plays a role of moderating or mediating effect on the relationship between individual non-specific psychological distress and health.
In phase I, this study based on Bullen and Onyx¡¦s measurement of social capital in community and developed a five-factor¡¦s social capital scale in Taiwan area using indigenous people in Southern Taiwan as studying population. Psychometric testing demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, validity and Goodness of fitness index for this instrument for indigenous people of Southern Taiwan using first-order and second-order confirmatory factor analysis.
In phase II, a total of 898 indigenous people of Rukai and Paiwan lived in four townships, mountainous area, Pingtung county of Southern Taiwan, aged 30 to 93, were surveyed during December 2004 to December 2005. Our results show individual community social capital was inversely correlated with perceived distress level and positively correlated with quality of life. In hierarchical regression analysis, individual social capital has a moderating effect on the relationship between individual perceived distress and individual quality of life in Taiwan¡¦s indigenous people. In structural equation model analysis using Amos statistical software also demonstrated that individual social capital has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between individual perceived distress and individual quality of life in Taiwan¡¦s indigenous people.
In conclusions, this study demonstrated that individual with higher community social capital was associated with better physical and mental health in indigenous people of Rukai and Paiwan lived in Pingtung county of Southern Taiwan. Individual social capital has a moderating effect and partial mediating effect on the stress-health model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0210106-103803 |
| Date | 10 February 2006 |
| Creators | Chang, Chao-Sung |
| Contributors | Kun-Yuan Jone, Ing-Chung Huang, Shyh-jer Chen, Jin Feng Uen, Liang-Chih Huang, Yuan-Duen Lee, Bih-Shiaw Jaw |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0210106-103803 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
Page generated in 0.0022 seconds