Social Capital and Health in Transitional Countries: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

Background and Purpose: Social capital is an understudied determinant of health in low- and middle-income countries. Post-Soviet countries represent a region, where welfare state was based on an institutionbal model for a many decades. After transition to market economy and a welfare shift to the residual model, it remains unclear whether social capital plays a role for health of people in the region. This paper will present evidence on mechanisms of social capital influence on health in Kyrgyzstan, a post-Soviet country in Central Asia. The research question we are exploring in our study is: What are the mechanisms of social capital on health in a low-income country with a history of strong institutional wellfare model?

Methods:  Using representative survey data (N = 7,465) from 2012 for our analysis, we conduct a multilevel moderation analysis of the social capital and health. We include scale measures representing various social capital dimensions: trust and respect for institutions (government, doctors, teachers, judges, mass media), satisfaction with social services (health, social security) and instrumental support within community (giving and receiving informal financial help).

Results: Results indicate that the instrumental support is the only mechanism with significant influence on health of people. Additionally, ability to get instrumental support within community interacts with household economic situation. This means that individuals from poor households: a) report poorer health if they do not have access to informal financial help; b) report better health if they have access to informal financial help.

Conclusions and Implications: These results have important implications for social work interventions in Kyrgyzstan and other transitional countries: 1) it is not the trust and respect for institutions, but rather individual and informal connections within community that affect the health of individuals; 2) social work interventions should include informal networks of individuals in bio-psychosocial assessments of clients; 3) access to financial assistance should be provided to people from poor households.