Associations between social capital and depression: A study of adult twins.
Publication Title
Health & place
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2018
Keywords
psjh_core; Depression; Social capital; Twin study
Abstract
Social capital is associated with depression independently of individual-level risk factors. We used a sample of 1586 same-sex twin pairs to test the association between seven measures of social capital and two related measures of neighborhood characteristics with depressive symptoms accounting for uncontrolled selection factors (i.e., genetics and shared environment). All measures of cognitive social capital and neighborhood characteristics were associated with less depressive symptoms in between-twin analysis. However, only measures of cognitive social capital were significantly associated with less depressive symptoms within-pairs. These results demonstrate that cognitive social capital is associated with depressive symptoms free of confounding from genetic and environmental factors shared within twins.
Clinical Institute
Mental Health
Specialty/Research Institute
Behavioral Health
