Bonding social capital and health within four First Nations communities in Canada: A cross-sectional study

Abstract To date, research on social capital in Indigenous contexts has been scarce. In this quantitative study, our objectives were to (Coleman, 1990): Describe bonding social capital within four distinct First Nations communities in Canada, and (Putnam, 2000) Explore the associations between bonding social capital and self-rated health in these communities. With community permission, cross-sectional data were drawn from the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds study. Four First Nations reserve-based communities were included in the analysis, totaling 591 participants. Descriptive statistics were computed to examine levels of social capital among communities and logistic regression analyses were performed to identify social capital predictors of good self-rated health. Age, sex, education level, and community were controlled for in all models. Across the four communities in this study, areas of common social capital included frequent socialization among friends and large and interconnected family networks. Positive self-rated health was associated with civic engagement at federal or provincial levels (OR=1.65, p