@article{ref1,
title="No association of neighbourhood volunteerism with mortality in New Zealand: a national multilevel cohort study",
journal="International journal of epidemiology",
year="2006",
author="Blakely, Tony A. and Atkinson, Joshua and Ivory, Vivienne and Collings, Sunny and Wilton, Jenny and Howden-Chapman, P.",
volume="35",
number="4",
pages="981-989",
abstract="BACKGROUND: The association of social capital with health and mortality is contentious, and empirical findings are inconsistent. This study tests the association of neighbourhood-level volunteerism with mortality. METHODS: Cohort study of 1996 New Zealand census respondents aged 25-74 years (4.75 million person years) using multilevel Poisson regression analyses. Neighbourhood (average population 2034) measures included indices of social capital (volunteering activities for all census respondents) and deprivation. RESULTS: Adjusting for just age and marital status, the mortality rate ratios for people living in the quintile of neighbourhoods with the lowest compared with highest volunteerism were 1.16 (95% confidence interval 1.08-1.24) and 1.09 (1.01-1.18), for males and females, respectively. Adjusting for potential individual-level and neighbourhood-level socioeconomic confounders reduced the rate ratios to 0.94 (0.88-1.01) and 0.92 (0.85-1.01), respectively. There was no significant association with any cause of death, including suicide [rate ratios 0.89 (0.64-1.22) and 0.57 (0.31-1.05), respectively]. Restricting the analyses to only those census respondents living at their census night address for five or more years, and therefore 'exposed' to that level of volunteerism for a longer period, did not substantially alter findings. CONCLUSIONS: This study, one of the largest multilevel studies yet, found no statistically significant independent association of a structural measure of neighbourhood social capital with mortality-including suicide. Assuming social features of neighbourhoods are important determinants of health, future research should examine other features (e.g. social fragmentation) and other outcomes (e.g. behaviour).<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0300-5771",
doi="10.1093/ije/dyl088",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl088"
}