title: Neighborhood social capital is associated with participation in health checks of a general population: a multilevel analysis of a population-based lifestyle intervention- the Inter99 study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Participation in population-based preventive health check has declined over the past decades. More research is needed to determine factors enhancing participation. The objective of this study was to examine the association between two measures of neighborhood level social capital on participation in the health check phase of a population-based lifestyle intervention.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study population comprised 12,568 residents of 73 Danish neighborhoods in the intervention group of a large population-based lifestyle intervention study - the Inter99. Two measures of social capital were applied; informal socializing and voting turnout.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In a multilevel analysis only adjusting for age and sex, a higher level of neighborhood social capital was associated with higher probability of participating in the health check. Inclusion of both individual socioeconomic position and neighborhood deprivation in the model attenuated the coefficients for informal socializing, while voting turnout became non-significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Higher level of neighborhood social capital was associated with higher probability of participating in the health check phase of a population-based lifestyle intervention. Most of the association between neighborhood social capital and participation in preventive health checks can be explained by differences in individual socioeconomic position and level of neighborhood deprivation. Nonetheless, there seems to be some residual association between social capital and health check participation, suggesting that activating social relations in the community may be an avenue for boosting participation rates in population-based health checks.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ClinicalTrials.gov (registration no. NCT00289237 ).
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Building 84/85, Glostrup Hospital, DK-2600, Glostrup, Denmark. anne.mette.bender@regionh.dk.|Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 677 Huntington Ave., 7th floor, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. anne.mette.bender@regionh.dk.
authors.forename: Anne Mette
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bender
authors.affiliation: Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 677 Huntington Ave., 7th floor, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. IKAWACHI@hsph.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kawachi
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Building 84/85, Glostrup Hospital, DK-2600, Glostrup, Denmark. torben.joergensen@regionh.dk.|Faculty of Health Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. torben.joergensen@regionh.dk.|Faculty of Medicine, University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark. torben.joergensen@regionh.dk.
authors.forename: Torben
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jørgensen
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Building 84/85, Glostrup Hospital, DK-2600, Glostrup, Denmark. charlotta.pisinger@regionh.dk.|Faculty of Health Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. charlotta.pisinger@regionh.dk.
authors.forename: Charlotta
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pisinger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055361:Multilevel Analysis; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D066270:Social Capital; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors