Background: Neighborhood matters for inhabitants' health and social capital has shown to play
a mystic role as an explanatory variable. How does a well-connected and social neighborhood
promote individuals' health? One can argue that social capital might affect psychological
exposures of individuals that are known to improve their health (e.g. well-being).
It can also be hypothesized that living in a high social capital neighborhood increases
the existence of health-related norms. These norms may positively affect one's individual
health-related behavior. Data and Methods: We use the Second Dutch National Survey of General Practice (2001) with 1,574 adults
living in 153 urban Dutch neighborhoods. We add to this cross-sectional data set information
regarding neighborhood social capital (an ecometric based aggregation of subjective
questions, data set: Housing and Living Survey, 1998), and control variables at the
neighborhood level provided by Statistic Netherlands. We link these data sets with
the neighborhood unit indicator postcode (4-zip postcode, geographic close units,
4,000 people on average per unit). To test our hypotheses we perform multilevel logistic
regression by using the statistic software program MLwiN. Results: Well-being clusters in Dutch urban neighborhoods and is positive associated with
neighborhood social capital. Feeling well showed to be a strong predictor for self-perceived
health as well. This psychological exposure fills a spot of the gap in our knowledge
of how social capital affects inhabitants' health. No evidence was found for norms.
Discussion: Our findings suggest that investments in neighborhood social capital result in a
higher level of well-being with positive effects on city dwellers' health.
