Abstract
Objectives
This cross-sectional study examined the effect of school-level structural social capital on smoking and drinking among Japanese youth.
Methods
Self-administered anonymous questionnaires were distributed to 3248 students at 29 high schools across Okinawa, Japan in 2008. Structural social capital was measured by students’ participation in organized activities: student council, extracurricular activities, volunteer activities, community sports clubs, and youth associations. Contextual-level social capital was measured by aggregated school-level individual responses.
Results
At the individual level, extracurricular activity participation was negatively associated with smoking and drinking, whereas participation in youth associations was positively associated with smoking and drinking. School-level extracurricular activity participation was negatively associated with smoking among boys, whereas school-level participation in youth associations was positively associated with smoking among boys and girls and drinking among boys.
Conclusions
This study suggests that structural social capital measured by participation in organized activities, especially extracurricular activities, might be an important way for youths to attain good health. This study also supports the idea that particular type of activities, such as youth associations, can lead to the so-called “dark side of social capital”.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank all students and teachers who agreed to participate in this study. This study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI Grant Number 19500579 and 23300246) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
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The author declares that he has no competing interests.
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Takakura, M. Relations of participation in organized activities to smoking and drinking among Japanese youth: contextual effects of structural social capital in high school. Int J Public Health 60, 679–689 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-015-0697-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-015-0697-4