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Social capital and health information seeking in China
Lu, Qianfeng1; Chang, Angela2; Yu, Guoming3; Yang, Ya3; Schulz, Peter J.1,4
2022-12-01
Source PublicationBMC Public Health
ISSN1471-2458
Volume22Issue:1Pages:1525
Abstract

Background: People’s potentials to seek health information can be affected by their social context, such as their social networks and the resources provided through those social networks. In the past decades, the concept of social capital has been widely used in the health realm to indicate people’s social context. However, not many such studies were conducted in China. Chinese society has its special quality that many Western societies lack: people traditionally render strong value to family relations and rely heavily on strong social ties in their social life. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the association between different types of social capital and health information-seeking behavior (HISB) in the Chinese context. The different types of social capital were primarily bonding and bridging, as well as cognitive and structural ones. Methods: Our analysis is based on a total of 3090 cases taken from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) – China, 2017. Dataset was weighted due to the overrepresentation of female respondents and hierarchical multiple regression analyses as well as binary logistic regression tests were operated to examine the associations between people’s social capital and their HISB. Results: Some aspects of social capital emerged as positive predictors of HISB: information support (standing in for the cognitive component of social capital) promoted health information seeking, organization memberships (standing in for the structural component) encouraged cancer information seeking, and both the use of the internet and of traditional media for gaining health information were positively linked with bridging networks and organization memberships. Bonding networks (structural component) were not correlated with any other of the key variables and emotional support (cognitive social capital) was consistently associated with all health information-seeking indicators negatively. Conclusions: Social capital demonstrated significant and complex relationships with HISB in China. Structural social capital generally encouraged HISB in China, especially the bridging aspects including bridging networks and organization memberships. On the other hand, emotional support as cognitive social capital damaged people’s initiatives in seeking health-related information.

KeywordSocial Capital Social Support Social Networks Health Information-seeking Behavior
DOI10.1186/s12889-022-13895-2
URLView the original
Indexed BySCIE
Language英語English
WOS Research AreaPublic, Environmental & Occupational Health
WOS SubjectPublic, Environmental & Occupational Health
WOS IDWOS:000838649800009
PublisherBMC, CAMPUS, 4 CRINAN ST, LONDON N1 9XW, ENGLAND
Scopus ID2-s2.0-85135817078
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Document TypeJournal article
CollectionUniversity of Macau
Corresponding AuthorSchulz, Peter J.
Affiliation1.Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Università Della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Via Buffi 13, 6900, Switzerland
2.Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
3.School of Journalism and Communication, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
4.Department of Communication & Media, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
Recommended Citation
GB/T 7714
Lu, Qianfeng,Chang, Angela,Yu, Guoming,et al. Social capital and health information seeking in China[J]. BMC Public Health, 2022, 22(1), 1525.
APA Lu, Qianfeng., Chang, Angela., Yu, Guoming., Yang, Ya., & Schulz, Peter J. (2022). Social capital and health information seeking in China. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 1525.
MLA Lu, Qianfeng,et al."Social capital and health information seeking in China".BMC Public Health 22.1(2022):1525.
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