Does caregiver's social bonding enhance the health of their children?: the association between social capital and child behaviors.
Little is known about the association between social capital and child behaviors. This study aims to investigate that association. A complete population-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted for all the caregivers with preschool children in a rural town in Okayama prefecture in Japan. Two dimensions of individual-level social capital and unhealthy child behaviors were reported by parent-administered questionnaire. We analyzed 354 preschool children (57.6% of all children for whom questionnaires were completed). Children whose main caregiver had high cognitive social capital were 89% less likely to miss breakfast (odds ratio [OR]＝0.11;95% confidence interval [CI]:0.01-1.03). Children whose caregiver had high structural social capital were 71% less likely to wake up late (OR＝0.29;95% CI:0.12-0.71) and 78% less likely to skip tooth brushing more than once per day (OR＝0.22;95% CI:0.05-0.93). Both cognitive and structural social capital were negatively associated with unhealthy child behaviors. A further intervention study is needed to confirm the impact of social capital on child behavior.
Department of Social Medicine, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. tfujiwara@nch.go.jp
Takeo
T
Fujiwara
Soshi
S
Takao
Toshihide
T
Iwase
Jun
J
Hamada
Ichiro
I
Kawachi
D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D012424:Rural Population; D012931:Social Environment; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires