The rise in chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases stresses the need to retain a healthy workforce. Many chronic diseases are linked to unhealthy lifestyles and stress. Fortunately, in many cases the severity chronic disease can be altered and improved by appropriate nutrition, increased physical activity, smoking cessation and reduced alcohol consumption. Unfortunately, high level of stress and unhealthy lifestyles are very common among university employees and students. This calls for appropriate action focusing on improving and maintaining university employees and students health. Settings such as the workplace and the university, in particular, have been established as one of the priority settings for health promotion into the 21st century, as they can reach a great range of people of diverse backgrounds. Therefore, the proposed project will examine university employees¿ and students¿ health and well-being, with the overall aim to improve and promote health.
Innovativity
Simply put, Social Capital can be seem as networks of people deriving benefit from common interaction with each other. According to Kawachi, Subramanian and Kim (2008) social capital can be understood as two separate concepts. On the one hand, social capital has been theorized as the resources (e.g. trust and norms) available to members of social groups. Social groups can be the workplace but also voluntary organizations, or the residential community. This is also referred to as `social cohesion¿. One the other hand social capital has been conceptualized as resources such as social support and information channels and that are derived from one's networks. This approach measures social capital as both, an individual¿s attribute and the property of a collective. However, often both conceptualization go hand in hand.
The benefits of SC on health can reach the individual through various pathways (3). First, SC may increase the diffusion of information on health related behaviors that can improve health. More individuals will thus come into possession of such information, and can then apply it to improve their health. Second, social capital can provide opportunities for (psycho)social support, that if accessed, will tend to decrease stress and improve health (3) by acting as a `buffering factor¿ for stress (4). Third, social capital is probable to make political organizing happen that could result in more health resources being brought into a given area. This in turn, could improve access to healthcare and therefore improve health. Evidence reported that individuals with higher levels of SC, or who live in areas with high levels of SC, enjoy better mental health. Nevertheless, an important caveat is that social capital can be considered as a ¿double-edged¿ phenomenon. Meaning, that while sometimes the effects of health maybe positive, the behavior that spreads through a social network can also be negative (5). Such spread of unhealthy behavior has been referred to as `social contagion¿ (5). An example of behavioral social-contagion would be the spread of obesity (5,6). Researchers found a positive relationship for a person's chances of becoming obese if he or she had a friend who became obese. Thus SC is not always in the direction of promoting health, but can cut both ways, often referred to as the `dark side¿ of Social capital (5).
Novelty
The novelty of the project lies mainly in following aspects. First, this project moves away from traditional health research focusing on the traditional determinants of health such as age, gender, marital status, employment status, to a more comprehensive approach including also social capital as a determinant of health. Hence, the novelty lies in more comprehensive set of health determinants. The project will particularily study whether individual and/or community-level social capital positively affects health. Social capital, in particular, if considered as an individual characteristic, can contribute to the field of health promotion by adding new knowledge on how social health interventions and social network interventions can best be designed to meet the needs of university employees and students. Thus, the project will identify areas for prevention and health promotion, and through its analysis allow target group oriented interventions to be developed.
Second (with specific focus on students), while previous analyses have paid no attention to possible differences between countries, this project enables to compare students health status and levels of social capital across different countries.
Besides, with this project we strive to close the current gap in literature on Social Capital and employees and students health. This project will help to create health-conducive working and learning environment. We hope that the findings from this research will inform further research and policy making (macro social policies and their consequent effects on health determinants).