PH 265 Chapter Notes - Chapter 0: Robert D. Putnam, Michael Marmot, Social Capital

• School: University of Rochester
• Department: Public Health
• Course: PH 265
• Professor: Nancy Chin

Document Summary

Social capital; the nature and extent of the impact of social relationships. All camps in the field of public health generally agree that social capital matters in some basic sense. Robert putnam and richard wilkinson have made contributions to the understanding of social capital in public health. Social capital can equally function in both a social exclusive and an inclusive way, having positive welfare effects for some and negative for others. Wilkinson argued that among the most affluent societies, those which have moved towards more uneven income distributions are characterized by individuals with increased anxiety and declining social support institutions, and by rising levels of violence and disrespect between citizens. This results in poorer population health performances in terms of national average life expectancy. Michael marmot sees widening absolute and relative inequality as the primary driver of public health outcomes in affluent societies.