Change in Municipality-Level Health-Related Social Capital and Depressive Symptoms: Ecological and 5-Year Repeated Cross-Sectional Study from the JAGES

Ryota Watanabe, Katsunori Kondo, Tami Saito, Taishi Tsuji, Takahiro Hayashi, Takaaki Ikeda and Tokunori Takeda
Additional contact information
Ryota Watanabe: Department of Rehabilitation, Tsushima City Hospital, Aichi 496-8537, Japan
Katsunori Kondo: Department of Social Preventive Medical Sciences, Center for Preventive Medical Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Tami Saito: Department of Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Aichi 474-8511, Japan
Taishi Tsuji: Department of Social Preventive Medical Sciences, Center for Preventive Medical Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Takahiro Hayashi: Department of Rehabilitation and Care, Seijoh University, Aichi 476-8588, Japan
Takaaki Ikeda: Department of Health Policy Science, Graduate School of Medical Science, Yamagata University, Yamagata 990-9585, Japan
Tokunori Takeda: Department of Rehabilitation and Care, Seijoh University, Aichi 476-8588, Japan

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 11, 1-10

Abstract: Prevalence of depressive symptoms is lower in communities with greater social capital (SC). However, it is unclear whether a prevalence of depressive symptoms will decrease in communities where SC has increased. We investigated the relationship between the changes in municipality-level SC and depressive symptoms by using 5-year repeated cross-sectional data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. In 2010 and 2016, self-reported questionnaires were mailed to functionally independent residents aged 65 years or older living in 44 municipalities; valid responses were received from 72,718 and 84,211 people in 2010 and 2016, respectively. All scores were aggregated at the municipality level. The dependent variable was the change in the prevalence of depressive symptoms that were diagnosed with a 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. Independent variables were the score of change in health-related SC indicators, e.g., social participation, social cohesion, and reciprocity. A multiple regression analysis was employed. The average prevalence of depressive symptoms decreased from 28.6% in 2010 to 21.3% in 2016. The increases in the percentages of sports group participation (B, −0.356), and reciprocity scores (B, −0.597) were significantly associated with the decrease in the prevalence of depressive symptoms after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Our findings suggest that community SC might be an intervention for protecting depressive symptoms in municipalities.

Keywords: depression; older adults; population approach; municipality level; social capital; Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/11/2038/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/11/2038/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:11:p:2038-:d:238191

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().