Social Capital during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Case of the Island of Menorca

Ester Villalonga-Olives, Ichiro Kawachi and Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado
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Ester Villalonga-Olives: Pharmaceutical Health Services Research Department, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
Ichiro Kawachi: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado: Department of Public Health, History of Science and Gynecology, Miguel Hernández University and CIBER de Epidemilogía y Salud Pública, 03550 Alicante, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-17

Abstract: The rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic has drastically altered the economic and social lives of people throughout the world. Our overall goal is to understand the mechanisms through which social capital shaped the community response to the pandemic on the island of Menorca, Spain, which was under a strict lockdown in 2020. Between April and June 2020, we performed qualitative interviews ( n = 25) of permanent residents of the island. From the findings, it is evident that social capital is an important resource with the capacity to organize help and support. However, the dark sides of social capital, with lack of social cohesion and lack of trust, also emerged as an important negative issue. We identified sources of tension that were not resolved, as well as important sociodemographic differences that are primary drivers for health inequalities. The investment in social networks and social capital is a long-term need that should consider sociodemographic vulnerability.

Keywords: social capital; COVID-19; qualitative research; epidemiology; public health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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