Original articleThe protective value of social capital against teen pregnancy: a state-level analysis
Section snippets
Social capital
Putnam’s state-level 14-item index of social capital was developed for the 48 contiguous states [12]. This dataset is a comprehensive depiction of social capital at the state level in the 1990s, forming an index ranging from very low social capital (−2.0) to very high social capital (+2.0). The measure is a combination of fourteen variables that span the domains of community organizational life, involvement in public affairs, volunteerism, informal sociability, and social trust.
Data sources
To avoid
Variance in teen pregnancy rates
In 1999, for the 48 contiguous states, the mean rate of pregnancy for adolescents aged 15 to 19 years was 78.0 per 1000 population (SD = 18.6). The median was 77.5 per 1000 and state-specific rates ranged from 41 per 1000 to 116 per 1000. The obtained distribution was normal (i.e., skewness and kurtosis ratios were each well below an absolute value of 2.0; .44 for skewness and 1.34 for kurtosis).
Bivariate associations
As expected, social capital was inversely correlated with teen pregnancy rates. The obtained
Discussion
This state-level analysis found an exceptionally strong relationship between social capital and teen pregnancy rates. The finding clearly warrants more intensive investigations designed to identify causal mechanisms that may currently be represented by the construct of social capital. Also, the potential for confounding variables to explain the relationship between social capital and teen pregnancy rates should be explored. Although our findings suggest that poverty and income inequality are
Conclusion
Findings from this state-level analysis suggest that social capital may explain differences between states with respect to teen pregnancy rates. Thus, social capital may play an important role in the prevention of teen pregnancy. This initial finding warrants subsequent empirical investigations designed to identify strategies that can be employed to foster the creation of social capital in communities and entire states.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard University for making his measure of social capital available as a public use data set (www.bowlingalone.com).
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2014, Social Science and MedicineCitation Excerpt :Research into structural level factors suggests that relationships between structural factors and health outcomes seem to endure even when controlling for individual risk factors and despite changing populations (Sampson, 2003). The structural level factors explored have largely focused on neighborhood measures of socioeconomic status (e.g., poverty concentration, disadvantage), which are important but challenging to address (Crosby and Holtgrave, 2006). A handful of other studies have explored social organizational factors (Berkman and Kawachi, 2000; Cohen et al., 2000; Crosby et al., 2003; Ellen et al., 2005; Putnam, 2000; Sampson, 1997).
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