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Actual or Potential Neighborhood Resources for Health

What Can Bourdieu Offer for Understanding Mechanisms Linking Social Capital to Health?

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Social Capital and Health

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the importance of considering network-based resources and access to such resources in studying social capital and health for neighborhood or local community contexts. Specifically, it draws upon the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose conceptualization of social capital, as part of a more elaborate “practice theory” of the distribution of power in society (e.g., Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), has only recently received attention by health researchers for the study of social capital and, more broadly, socioeconomic determinants of individual and population health. Prior and on-going theoretical and empirical research are used to support the need to conceptualize neighborhood social capital as resources inhered within networks consisting of neighborhood residents—as well as potentially other neighborhoods and institutions—that may be used by residents for individual or mutual action.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Richard M. Carpiano PhD, MPH

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  1. Richard M. Carpiano PhD, MPH
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge Buliding, 7th Floor 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Ichiro Kawachi , S.V. Subramanian  & Daniel Kim ,  & 

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Carpiano, R.M. (2008). Actual or Potential Neighborhood Resources for Health. In: Kawachi, I., Subramanian, S., Kim, D. (eds) Social Capital and Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71311-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71311-3_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-71310-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-71311-3

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