IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v278y2021ics027795362100280x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The evolution of the association between community level social capital and COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Borgonovi, Francesca
  • Andrieu, Elodie
  • Subramanian, S.V.

Abstract

We use county level data from the United States to document the role of social capital the evolution of COVID-19 between January 2020 and January 2021. We find that social capital differentials in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations depend on the dimension of social capital and the timeframe considered. Communities with higher levels of relational and cognitive social capital were especially successful in lowering COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations than communities with lower social capital between late March and early April. A difference of one standard deviation in relational social capital corresponded to a reduction of 30% in the number of COVID-19 deaths recorded. After April 2020, differentials in COVID-19 deaths related to relational social capital persisted although they became progressively less pronounced. By contrast, the period of March–April 2020, our estimates suggest that there was no statistically significant difference in the number of deaths recorded in areas with different levels of cognitive social capital. In fact, from late June-early July onwards the number of new deaths recorded as being due to COVID-19 was higher in communities with higher levels of cognitive social capital. The overall number of deaths recorded between January 2020 and January 2021 was lower in communities with higher levels of relational social capital. Our findings suggest that the association between social capital and public health outcomes can vary greatly over time and across indicators of social capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie & Subramanian, S.V., 2021. "The evolution of the association between community level social capital and COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:278:y:2021:i:c:s027795362100280x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362100280X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113948?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Emily Oster, 2019. "Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 187-204, April.
    3. Wenzhi Ding & Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Wensi Xie, 2020. "Social Distancing and Social Capital: Why U.S. Counties Respond Differently to COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 27393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bargain, Olivier & Aminjonov, Ulugbek, 2020. "Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    5. Durante, Ruben & Guiso, Luigi & Gulino, Giorgio, 2021. "Asocial capital: Civic culture and social distancing during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    6. Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie, 2020. "Bowling together by bowling alone: Social capital and COVID-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    7. Mr. Francis Fukuyama, 2000. "Social Capital and Civil Society," IMF Working Papers 2000/074, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Jennifer Beam Dowd & Liliana Andriano & David M. Brazel & Valentina Rotondi & Per Block & Xuejie Ding & Yan Liu & Melinda C. Mills, 2020. "Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(18), pages 9696-9698, May.
    9. Viswanath, K. & Steele, W.R. & Finnegan Jr., J.R., 2006. "Social capital and health: Civic engagement, community size, and recall of health massages," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(8), pages 1456-1461.
    10. John M. Barrios & Efraim Benmelech & Yael V. Hochberg & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2020. "Civic Capital and Social Distancing during the Covid-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rupasingha, Anil & Goetz, Stephan J. & Freshwater, David, 2006. "The production of social capital in US counties," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 83-101, February.
    12. Rodgers, Justin & Valuev, Anna V. & Hswen, Yulin & Subramanian, S.V., 2019. "Social capital and physical health: An updated review of the literature for 2007–2018," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Joël Mossong & Niel Hens & Mark Jit & Philippe Beutels & Kari Auranen & Rafael Mikolajczyk & Marco Massari & Stefania Salmaso & Gianpaolo Scalia Tomba & Jacco Wallinga & Janneke Heijne & Malgorzata Sa, 2008. "Social Contacts and Mixing Patterns Relevant to the Spread of Infectious Diseases," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(3), pages 1-1, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Castriota, Stefano & Rondinella, Sandro & Tonin, Mirco, 2023. "Does social capital matter? A study of hit-and-run in US counties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 329(C).
    2. Bello, Piera & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2022. "Education and COVID-19 excess mortality," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    3. Martin Lange & Ole Monscheuer, 2022. "Spreading the disease: Protest in times of pandemics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2664-2679, December.
    4. Ma Yuan & Cao Yue-qun & Wang Hao & Xiang Hong, 2022. "Does Social Capital Promote Health?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(2), pages 501-524, July.
    5. Pilar Mercader-Moyano & Ana Mª Estable-Reifs & Homero Pellicer, 2021. "Toward the Renewal of the Sustainable Urban Indicators’ System after a Global Health Crisis. Practical Application in Granada, Spain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-43, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laliotis, Ioannis & Minos, Dimitrios, 2022. "Religion, social interactions, and COVID-19 incidence in Western Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Fraser, Timothy & Aldrich, Daniel P. & Page-Tan, Courtney, 2021. "Bowling alone or distancing together? The role of social capital in excess death rates from COVID19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    3. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Bartolini, Stefano & Sarracino, Francesco & Slater, Giulia, 2020. "Do epidemics impose a trade-off between freedom and health? Evidence from Europe during Covid-19," MPRA Paper 105035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Giulia Montresor & Lucia Schiavon, 2024. "Social capital and vaccination compliance: Evidence from Italy," Working Papers 2024: 04, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Cristini, Annalisa & Trivin, Pedro, 2022. "Close encounters during a pandemic: Social habits and inter-generational links in the first two waves of COVID-19," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    7. Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie, 2020. "Bowling together by bowling alone: Social capital and COVID-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    8. Deopa, Neha & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: Culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 857, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    10. Steven Stillman & Mirco Tonin, 2022. "Communities and testing for COVID-19," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(4), pages 617-625, June.
    11. Étienne Dagorn & Martina Dattilo & Matthieu Pourieux, 2022. "Preferences matter! Political Responses to the COVID-19 and Population’s Preferences," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2022-01, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    12. Iacoella, Francesco & Justino, Patrica & Martorano, Bruno, 2021. "Do pandemics lead to rebellion? Policy responses to COVID-19, inequality, and protests in the USA," MERIT Working Papers 2021-014, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. Hadi Alizadeh & Ayyoob Sharifi & Safiyeh Damanbagh & Hadi Nazarnia & Mohammad Nazarnia, 2023. "Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social sphere and lessons for crisis management: a literature review," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 117(3), pages 2139-2164, July.
    14. Neha Deopa & Piergiuseppe Fortunato, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1355-1383, October.
    15. Bazzi, Samuel & Fiszbein, Martin & Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2021. "“Rugged individualism” and collective (in)action during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    16. Barrios, John M. & Benmelech, Efraim & Hochberg, Yael V. & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2021. "Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    17. Lewis Davis & Justin Esposito, 2023. "Social Disparities and Social Distancing During the Covid Pandemic," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 129-141, April.
    18. Choi, Jaerim & Lim, Sunghun, 2023. "Ostrom Meets the Pandemic: Lessons from Asian Rice Farming Traditions," 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 334543, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    19. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "From the lockdown to the new normal: individual mobility and local labor market characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1517-1550, October.
    20. Grimalda, Gianluca & Murtin, Fabrice & Pipke, David & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2023. "The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:278:y:2021:i:c:s027795362100280x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.