Transforming individual civic engagement into community collective efficacy: the role of bonding social capital

Using the 12-item short-form health survey (SF-12) to evaluate self-rated health in an environmental justice community

The Greater Fifth Ward (GFW) is a Northeast Houston, Texas, neighborhood with a legacy of industrial contamination and a confirmed cancer cluster. To understand self-rated health in the GFW, community-based participatory research (CBPR), was used to promote the inclusion of all partners. CBPR involves the community during each stage of the research process from design to research dissemination. A complete census was conducted, and 114 surveys were obtained in the environmental justice (EJ) community from July to November 2021. EJ communities shoulder an unfair burden of environmental exposures, pollution, and poor built environments. Mental and physical health were measured using the validated 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12v2). We posited that the Black or African American (Black/AA) community would have lower mental composite scores (MCS) and physical composite scores (PCS) compared to the nation and their White counterparts. The MCS and PCS were calculated and compared against the national mean. Overall, participants had higher MCS and lower PCS than the national mean. Black/AA males and females had lower MCS compared to their White counterparts. White females had the lowest PCS among all respondents, significantly lower than the national average. MCS was lower among those who lived in the neighborhood longer. Burdens from pollution may impact residents' health and perceived health. Targeted interventions or programs that improve mental or physical health would benefit this community and other inequitably burdened neighborhoods.

Crime-related perceptions and walking for recreation inside and outside one's home neighborhood

It is widely assumed crime and related concerns, including neighborhood incivilities and fear of crime, are barriers to physical activity (PA). Past studies reveal mixed evidence. Studies of impacts for crime-protective factors are less common but have similarly mixed results. This paper evaluates a comprehensive transdisciplinary conceptual framework of cross-sectional associations between crime-related perceptions and reported minutes/week of recreational walking inside and outside one's home neighborhood. Safe and Fit Environments Study (SAFE) recruited and surveyed 2302 participants from adolescents to older adults from four U.S. metropolitan areas. A zero-inflated model estimated two components of each outcome: whether the respondent walked, and minutes/week walked. Correlates of recreational walking were location-specific, differing based on walking location. Fear of crime, risk evaluation, victimization, and incivilities were not consistently associated with walking for recreation inside one's neighborhood. People with crime concerns about their own neighborhoods, however, more commonly walked for recreation outside their neighborhoods. Protective crime-related perceptions that seldom have been studied in relation to PA, such as street efficacy (i.e., the perceived ability to avoid and manage danger), were strongly associated with recreational walking in both locations, indicating the additional heuristic value of the SAFE conceptual framework. Crime-related perceptions and walking for recreation: Evaluating a conceptual model.

Exploring the Role of Fear, Civic Disengagement, and Economic Disenfranchisement Within Communities that Experience Gun Violence

A growing body of research has documented how gun violence can affect mental and physical health outcomes among adults. Likewise, the literature is also beginning to reveal negative psychological effects related to distress and hypervigilance and sociological implications around diminished community engagement and economic opportunity. However, there remains a need to fully explore the role of fear related to the experience of gun violence. Through a qualitative inquiry consisting of community resident focus groups and community leader interviews, this study examined how participants' perceptions of fear related to their exposures to and experiences of gun violence. The findings highlight the pervasive emotional experience of existing in a fearful, distressed, and/or anxious state within certain communities, and how civic disengagement, neighborhood disconnection, and economic disenfranchisement exist in communities that disproportionately experience violence.

Dynamic assessment of community resilience in China: empirical surveys from three provinces

Background

Strengthening the construction of community resilience and reducing disaster impacts are on the agenda of the Chinese government. The COVID-19 pandemic could alter the existing community resilience. This study aims to explore the dynamic change trends of community resilience in China and analyze the primary influencing factors of community resilience in the context of COVID-19, as well as construct Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China.

Methods

A community advancing resilience toolkit (CART) was used to conduct surveys in Guangdong, Sichuan, and Heilongjiang provinces in China in 2015 and 2022, with community resilience data and information on disaster risk awareness and disaster risk reduction behaviors of residents collected. The qualitative (in-depth interview) data from staffs of government agencies and communities (n = 15) were pooled to explore Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China. Descriptive statistics analysis and t-tests were used to investigate the dynamic development of community resilience in China. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to explore the main influencing factors of residential community resilience with such socio-demographic characteristics as gender and age being controlled.

Results

The results indicate that community resilience in China has improved significantly, presenting differences with statistical significance (p < 0.05). In 2015, connection and caring achieved the highest score, while disaster management achieved the highest score in 2022, with resources and transformative potential ranking the lowest in their scores in both years. Generally, residents presented a high awareness of disaster risks. However, only a small proportion of residents that were surveyed had participated in any "community-organized epidemic prevention and control voluntary services" (34.9%). Analysis shows that core influencing factors of community resilience include: High sensitivity towards major epidemic-related information, particular attention to various kinds of epidemic prevention and control warning messages, participation in epidemic prevention and control voluntary services, and formulation of epidemic response plans. In this study, we have constructed Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China, which included community resilience risk awareness, community resilience governance bodies, community resilience mechanisms and systems.

Conclusion

During the pandemic, community resilience in China underwent significant changes. However, community capital was, is, and will be a weak link to community resilience. It is suggested that multi-stages assessments of dynamic change trends of community resilience should be further performed to analyze acting points and core influencing factors of community resilience establishment at different stages.

Public health literacy in primary users in western Turkey

BACKGROUND

Public health literacy (PHL) is a novel perspective on health literacy (HL). Differing from HL's individualist approach, PHL is concerned with public health events and promoting health in the whole society.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate PHL, a newly developed concept, and related factors.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, people who visited primary healthcare centers in urban and rural settings were recruited using a questionnaire that includes Public Health Literacy Knowledge Scale (PHLKS) and Adult Health Literacy Scale (AHLS). Out of four Primary Healthcare Centers (PMCs) in western Turkey selected randomly, one PMC was located in a rural setting, while three PMCs were located in an urban setting. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the predictors for PHL.

RESULTS

The study group consisted of 1672 people, of which 55.3% were male. The mean age was 40.94 ± 15.22. The median score (min-max) from PHLKS was 13.0 (0-17). Multiple linear regression showed that income level had a negative impact on PHL. Higher education, fondness for reading, hospital admission and HL, however, increased PHL levels. Additionally, living in an urban area and not having auditory problems were positively associated with PHL.

CONCLUSIONS

Participants had a moderate level of PHL. Improving PHL should be a priority to tackle global and local problems that have an adverse effect on community health. To increase community engagement in public health events, people with low education and HL levels should be targeted in future training programs.

A public health study on the participation mechanism of social capital in the governance of public sports space in dilapidated urban communities - a case study of Changsha City, Hunan Province

Introduction

China's aging population, mobile population, low-income families, and other vulnerable groups congregate in dilapidated urban communities serving as public health spaces. As a result, managing public sports spaces in aging urban areas is a significant public health project in China, an essential strategy for raising residents' quality of life, and a significant effort to support the active aging of the older adult.

Methods

The study used mathematical and statistical techniques, questionnaires, and logical deduction to conduct a public health study on the participation mechanism of social capital in the governance of public sports spaces in dilapidated urban communities. It chose 11 old Changsha, Hunan Province, communities as the research objects.

Results

Personal social capital was found to boost the availability of public sports spaces in older populations through social connections. Collective social capital improves the availability of public sports spaces in aging populations through social trust and stabilizes the order of public sports spaces in aging communities through social involvement.

Discussion

To improve the governance efficiency of public sports spaces in aging urban communities, the study aims to actively mobilize and accumulate social capital through cultivating the public spirit, reshaping the concept of sports governance, appropriately decentralizing and empowering, strengthening sports governance structures, enhancing communication and collaboration, and building sports governance. This is essential for China to fully implement the policies of active aging, a healthy China, and creating a community for global public health.

A dual-path psychosocial model of social determinants of health in the community: Results from the Cause Commune program

We tested a dual-path psychosocial framework of social vulnerability that considers the impact of socioeconomic resources and cognitive social capital on health, and whether they were mediated by an enabling psychosocial path (collective efficacy) and a disabling path (loneliness). A total of 1401 people (53.6% female, M_age  = 48.7, SD = 18.1) from a community in Switzerland participated in the study. Structural equation models showed that psychosocial factors were related to both social determinants and health outcomes and partially mediated their interrelation. Our model showed an adequate fit to the data (χ²  = 1,377.56, df = 341, p = 0.000, comparative fit index = 0.93, root mean square error of approximation = 0.05, standardized root mean-squared residual = 0.05). The findings highlight the role of psychosocial-relational factors in the processes of social vulnerability and would be of interest to researchers working on social vulnerability in the community.

Modeling residents' multidimensional social capital in China's neighborhood renewal projects: SEM and MIMIC approaches

Neighborhood renewal is now an important approach to sustainable urban development in China. However, neighborhood renewal projects are often beset with social problems such as noncooperation from residents, which can be attributed to diverse interests and complex relationships among residents. However, there is little research on resident relations in China and intra-resident conflict. Based on social capital, this study provided a better understanding of resident relationships in neighborhood renewal in China. To this end, we developed a theoretical framework of residents' multidimensional social capital (structural, relational, and cognitive). Then, a survey was conducted to collect data from 590 residents across China who were experiencing or had experienced neighborhood renewal. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) modeling were used. The results revealed positive effects of structural social capital on relational and cognitive social capital, and the mediation role of relational social capital was demonstrated. We also tested the effects of differences in sociodemographic characteristics. Our findings verify the explanatory power of social capital regarding residents' complex relationships in neighborhood renewal in China. Implications for theory and policy are discussed. This study helps to improve our understanding of residents' social systems in neighborhood renewal and provides theoretical support for formulating neighborhood renewal policies in China and abroad.

Opening the black box of the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and mental health: Neighborhood social-interactive characteristics as contextual mechanisms

Previous studies have linked low neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) to mental health problems. However, few studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying this association and most focused on the association with negative indicators of mental health, such as symptoms of depression or anxiety. This paper investigated whether neighborhood social characteristics (social interaction, trust, safety, organization participation, and attachment) mediate the association between NSES and mental health. We combined Danish register data with survey data from the North Denmark Region Health Survey 2017. Mental health was assessed with the Rand 12-item Short-form Survey (SF-12). The sample consisted of 14,969 individuals nested in 1047 neighborhoods created with an automated redistricting algorithm. We fitted multilevel structural equation mediation models and used a Monte Carlo simulation method to estimate confidence intervals for the indirect effects. NSES was positively associated with mental health. Neighborhood trust significantly mediated this relationship, accounting for 34% of the association after controlling for other mediators. These results indicate that higher levels of mental health in more affluent neighborhoods are partially explained by higher levels of trust. Improving neighborhood trust could mitigate sociogeographic inequalities in mental health.

Agent-Based Modeling: an Underutilized Tool in Community Violence Research

Purpose of Review

Recent Findings

Summary

Exploring the effects of social capital on the compulsive use of online social networks in civil unrest contexts

The use of online social networking sites has become part of everyday life for more than three billion people worldwide. However, its use may go beyond being a habit, leading to compulsive use behaviours that jeopardize the well-being of an individual and the whole society. This study proposes and evaluates a theoretical model that examines the four dimensions of social capital, mediated by bonding and bridging social capital, as drivers of compulsive use of online social networks in the context of civil unrest. We evaluate the model using partial least squares structural equation modelling with data collected from a developing country. We found that reciprocity is the most important driver for bonding and bridging social capital with online members. Whereas trust, contradicting most of the literature in the field, was not statistically significant over bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital shows a significant association with compulsive use behaviour. On the other hand, the effect of bridging social capital on compulsive use behaviour, although not significant, may become significant in the presence of a strong usage habit.

Rebuilding active public participation after the COVID-19 era: The South African case

The consequences of COVID-19 have impacted the poor and vulnerable populations of the world significantly, particularly in countries like South Africa. State institutions have been prioritising mitigating the impacts of the pandemic. And in the academy, there has been an influx of recent scholarship contending with the psychological and physical repercussions of the pandemic. This article focuses on South Africa's rebuilding of public participation in governance in the country post-pandemic. The article is based on a qualitatively rooted methodology consisting of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including official state documents, academic books and articles, and reports from non-governmental organisations and think tanks. The article further draws on the findings of global and continental research and proposes steps for rebuilding public participation in South Africa in a manner that ensures accessible governance for all, especially the poor and vulnerable populations. An exposition of the legislative measures enhancing public participation in South Africa is accompanied by a brief social and economic picture before and during COVID-19, and a comparative synopsis of old and new direction of the processes and realities of the phenomenon in society. The research-based key steps leading to successfully rebuilding political and social engagement after COVID-19 were identified as being founded on a number of steps. The first related to the process of moving from community diversity to communal unity through the continuous development of trust between community and leadership, the processes of community developmental empowerment, the active participation of women in political leadership and the active role of the ward committees in community governance.

Drinking and Neighborhood Contexts of Alcohol's Harms from Others

AIMS

Negative consequences of alcohol (or secondhand effects) extend beyond drinkers to affect other people, including both known others (friends, family members, spouses/partners) and strangers. Secondhand effects of alcohol manifest across various social environments, including the places where people drink and the neighborhoods where they live. These neighborhoods are characterized by different levels of alcohol availability and degrees of residential social cohesion. Hence, social environments may confer risk or protect from harms from others' drinking. The current study explores: (a) how drinking venues and neighborhood contexts relate to harms from other people's drinking (both known others and strangers), and (b) whether these associations vary by gender.

METHODS

Using pooled data from the National Alcohol Survey and National Alcohol's Harms to Others Survey (N = 5425), we regressed harms from various drinking others on social environment characteristics (drinking venues, alcohol availability and social cohesion) for the full sample and separately by gender. We used the false discovery rate method to adjust for multiple testing.

RESULTS

Overall, greater neighborhood social cohesion was associated with lower odds of harm from drinking others and, specifically, harm from drinking strangers. The effect of social cohesion was most pronounced for men.

CONCLUSIONS

Social cohesion was the most salient neighborhood factor associated with reduced alcohol-related harms from strangers. Directions for future research and policies to mitigate these harms are discussed.

Estimating intervention dose of the multilevel multisite children's healthy living program intervention

Increased community collective efficacy (CE), defined as social cohesion among neighbors and their willingness to intervene for common good, is associated with improved community health outcomes. However, processes to increase CE and estimate its dose within an intervention are not well understood. The 2 year Children's Healthy Living (CHL) intervention aimed to improve child behaviors known to affect obesity. We used data from CHL to estimate CE dose and examine its association with a successful outcome from CHL-reduction in children's recreational screen time. Monthly reports from nine intervention communities were quantified, and CE dose was calculated for each community overall, at 4 time intervals (6, 12, 18, and 24 months), and for each CE building block-social bonding, social bridging, social leveraging, empowerment, and civic engagement. CE dose at each time interval and change in screen time was correlated using Spearman's rho. Next, communities were categorized as having a high CE dose or a low CE dose, and differences between four high-dose and five low-dose communities were compared using a two-tailed t-test. The correlation between change in screen time and CE dose was significant (rs = 0.83, p = .003). Significantly more activities facilitating empowerment and civic engagement were conducted in high-dose communities, which were more likely to show improvements in screen time, than in low-dose communities. This method of estimating an intervention's CE dose and examining change over time and effect of CE and its building blocks on intervention outcomes shows promise.

Factors Influencing Family Forest Owners' Interest in Community-led Collective Invasive Plant Management

Effective invasive plant management requires collective action. However, little is known about what motivates individuals to work collectively. We conducted a mail survey of 2,600 randomly selected family forest owners in Indiana, USA to examine factors associated with community-led collective action. Specifically, we examined the role of perceived self-efficacy, perceived collective efficacy, concerns about invasive plants, and social norms associated with invasive plant management in shaping family forest owners' self-reported likelihood to work with their neighbors to remove invasive plants. We found that past experience talking to others or working with neighbors to remove invasive plants were important predictors of landowners' intention to work collectively, as were perceived self-efficacy in their own ability to manage invasive plants, perceived need for collective action, social norms, and concerns about invasive plants on neighboring or nearby properties. However, most socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level, income) and land ownership characteristics (e.g., residence status, having a written forest management plan) were not statisically significant predictors of family forest owners' likelihood to work with their neighbors. Our findings suggest that building individual sense of competence, facilitating neighbor interactions, and strengthening shared concerns may facilitate community-led collective action to manage invasive plants.

Coaching for a Sustainability Transition: Empowering Student-Led Sustainability Initiatives by Developing Skills, Group Identification, and Efficacy Beliefs

Self-, collective, and participative efficacy are strong predictors of sustainability action. Yet, few studies have investigated the dynamics and variability of efficacy beliefs. In this transdisciplinary study, we tested such factors in the context of a peer-to-peer coaching program for sustainability volunteers, embedded in a structured-educational context. Over weekends, 2 qualified coaches trained 36 German bottom-up, student-led sustainability initiatives. These coaches instructed students in team building, envisioning, project planning, and on-campus sustainability practice. While 317 participants completed our pre-questionnaire, N = 165 completed both the pre- and post-questionnaire. As hypothesized, after having participated in the coaching weekend, action skills, collaboration skills, group identification, and self-, collective, and participative efficacy all increased. The latter of these increased, to our knowledge, for the first time in environmental psychology research. Group identification and having a vision emerged as important efficacy predictors, and participative efficacy beliefs in turn predicted volunteering. Moreover, we took initial steps in investigating the interaction of psychological and structural factors from a multilevel perspective. Our analyses revealed that efficacy beliefs on the individual level were higher when the university had a green office and when the student initiative was at a small university. We conclude by proposing an empowerment model for sustainability volunteers and by discussing the practical implications of our findings.

Harnessing of Social Capital as a Determinant for Climate Change Adaptation in Mazungunye Communal Lands in Bikita, Zimbabwe

The livelihoods of rural people have been plagued by the precarious impacts of climate change-related disasters manifesting through floods, heat waves, droughts, cyclones, and erratic temperatures. However, they have not remained passive victims to these impacts. In light of this, rural people are on record of employing a plethora of adaptation strategies to cushion their livelihoods from climate change impacts. In this vew, the role of social capital as a determinant of climate change adaptation is underexplored. Little attention has been paid to how social capital fostered through trust and cooperation amongst rural households and communities is essential for climate change adaptation. This study explored how people in Mazungunye communal lands are embracing social capital to adapt to climate change impacts. The researchers adopted a qualitative research approach guided by the descriptive research design. The population of the study was gathered through simple random and purposive sampling techniques. Accordingly, the population sample consisted of 25 research participants drawn from members of the community following the simple random and purposive sampling techniques. In-depth individual interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. Data were analysed through the Thematic Content Analysis. This study established that different forms of social capital are being embraced by the community members to withstand the effects of climate change. These include village savings clubs (fushai), chief's granary (Zunde raMambo), collective field work (nhimbe), and destocking of livestock (kuronzera) strategies. These strategies illustrate community reliance on indigenous knowledge adaptation strategies as a community response to impacts of climate change on their livelihoods.

Expanding Social, Psychological, and Physical Indicators of Urbanites' Life Satisfaction toward Residential Community: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

Attention on, and interest in, life satisfaction has increased worldwide. However, research on life satisfaction focused toward the urban dwellers' residential community is mainly from western countries, and the limited research from China is solely focused on the geriatric population via a narrowly constrained research perspective. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate urbanites' life satisfaction toward their community, combining the psychological (behavioral community engagement, mental state of flow, and cognitive community identity), physical (PREQIs-perceived residential environment quality indicators: e.g., green area), and social perspectives (social capital). The proposed conceptual model was tested on a regionally representative sample of 508 urban community residents in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan province, China. Data were analyzed via a structure equation modelling approach in AMOS software. Findings suggested that all of the psychological, physical and social factors contributed to a prediction of life satisfaction. Specifically, social capital mediated the path from community engagement and flow to life satisfaction, and community identity mediated the path from flow experience and green area to life satisfaction. Additionally, social capital contributed to predict life satisfaction through its influence on community identity. Findings provide suggestions for urban designers and policymakers to focus on creating an urban community equipped with green area, which helps to promote physical activities that are flow-productive, to enhance residents' identification to their residential community and, therefore, increase life satisfaction.

Promoting BioPsychoSocial health of older adults using a Community for Successful Ageing program (ComSA) in Singapore: A mixed-methods evaluation

BioPsychoSocial health promotion is increasingly emphasized for Successful Ageing. Few programs are known to target BioPsychoSocial health of older adults and their community. The Community for Successful Ageing: Community Development program (ComSA CD) was developed in Singapore for this purpose. This study assessed program effects on BioPsychoSocial health and civic engagement behaviours of participants. ComSA CD offered self-care healthy lifestyle education (Bio-physical), guided autobiography (Psychological) and a civic engagement component which galvanized participants to solve community issues (Social). Recruitment occurred through self-care or guided autobiography; following which participants were funnelled into the civic engagement component. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental evaluation was conducted, using a pre-post one-year survey (N=232) with those exposed and unexposed (rejected) to ComSA CD. Using a generalized linear model, associations between post one-year BioPsychoSocial outcomes and exposure group were quantified using percentage change, adjusting for baseline outcome and group differences. Concurrently, program effects were explored through six focus groups with program implementers and participants using thematic analysis. The program had multiple positive effects. Participants recruited via self-care also taking part in civic engagement reported 31% higher frequency of self-care (95% CI=21% to 68%) post one-year compared to unexposed participants. Qualitative findings illustrated how the civic engagement component stimulated agency of participants to push for neighborhood changes and civic engagement initiatives. The quantitative survey highlighted that this effect was strongest among those funnelled from guided-autobiography (92% higher frequency of civic engagement at post one-year than unexposed; 95%CI=41% to 178%) compared to those funnelled from self-care (53% higher than unexposed, 95%CI=17% to 114%). It was found qualitatively that guided-autobiography enabled more meaningful bonding and communication than the self-care component, explaining quantitative effects on social support only present among guided autobiography participants (36% higher than unexposed; 95%CI=11% to 68%). Findings highlighted the importance of improving group dynamics for collective action.

Structural Barriers to Citizenship: A Mental Health Provider Perspective

This study employed a citizenship measure to explore mental health providers' views of citizenship to support the societal participation of people with mental illnesses, with citizenship defined as a person's (or people's) strong connection to the 5Rs of rights, responsibilities, roles, resources and relationships and a sense of belonging that is validated by others. Providers identified key structural barriers to full citizenship for clients. Their comments reflect openness to citizenship as a framework for understanding their clients and the need for greater access to normative community life, but also skepticism regarding providers' and public mental health centers' abilities to incorporate citizenship approaches in current care models. Findings suggest there are challenges to implementing "citizenship-oriented care" in public mental health settings, but efforts to address these challenges can support the goal of "a life in the community."

The Local Food Environment and Food Security: The Health Behavior Role of Social Capital

Food politics and economic forces may determine the macro conditions for food supply, but the local environment has the most substantial impact on population health. Food security is determined not only by the basic availability of food, but also by social, economic, and cultural factors influencing dietary behaviors. This paper investigates the role of social institutions, specifically social capital, in affecting food security by proposing a theoretical linkage between social capital and health behavior, and an illustrative case is provided. Social capital, defined as the value of the bonding, bridging, and linking relationships between people, is well demonstrated to be related to health. Many mechanisms link social capital to health, including shared access to food and nutritional behaviors. Further, social capital influences health through social status and race. This paper further investigates the links between minority status, food security, social capital, and health. The analysis draws on empirical work in North Carolina with community gardens, faith communities, the local food environment, and other social capital-related variables. By investigating the nature of local food security, particularly for minority populations, this analysis allows for better integration of local conditions with global food politics.

Personal and community factors as predictors of different types of community engagement

Citizen participation is an important element of local democracy because it increases residents' influence over local community issues. Using a sample of 494 Israeli participants, this paper examines, for the first time, the unique and combined contribution of personal factors (self-esteem and mastery) and community factors (years of activity, knowledge of local services, trust in leaders, community commitment, and community belonging) to the explanation of the variance in each of two types of community engagement: development and planning, and activism and advocacy. Data analysis included hierarchical regression that examined all variables and possible interactions among them. The results indicate that mastery and the community variables, except for years of activity, predict both types of engagement. Interestingly, knowledge of services negatively predicts both, while trust in leaders also predicts both types of engagement, but in opposite directions. In conclusion, the paper considers how these findings might inform community work interventions.

The neighborhood story project: Co-creating learning, caring, and empowering environments

AIMS

The study examines the Neighborhood Story Project, a facilitated three-month action research project that engages residents in community change. In particular, this paper identifies design and facilitation elements that facilitated participant growth within the project.

METHODS

This constructivist multi-case study examines three Neighborhood Story Projects, all located in Nashville, TN. The analysis draws on observational, focus group and interview data.

RESULTS

Findings suggest that the intentional cocreation of a learning, caring, and empowering environment propelled member gains. The paper identifies specific design elements that fostered these conditions, suggesting a group-work practice model for intervening in gentrifying neighborhoods.

CONCLUSION

This study contributes to theory and practice related to group-level interventions in neighborhoods undergoing rapid demographic changes. Findings can be leveraged to better understand processes and strategies for fostering place attachments, social ties, and civic action.

Collective Efficacy as a Key Context in Neighborhood Support for Urban Youth

Neighborhood context, including the physical and social environment, has been implicated as important contributors to positive youth development. A transactional approach to neighborhood asserts that place and people are mutually constitutive; negative perceptions of place are intrinsically bound with negative portrayals of stigmatized groups, including youth. Adult perceptions of neighborhood youth may contribute to an increased sense of alienation and youth antisocial behavior. This study uses street-intercept interviews with adults (N = 408) to examine the relationship between neighborhood conditions and adult support for neighborhood youth. A path model was used to examine the direct and indirect relationship of neighborhood constructs (safety, aesthetic quality, and walkability) on adult support for neighborhood youth. Neighborhood aesthetic quality and the walking environment were directly associated with adult support for youth, whereas perceived safety was indirectly associated. Collective efficacy partially explained these relationships. Findings support theorized relationships between people and places; improvements to neighborhood physical environment may directly impact resident adults' perceptions of neighborhood young people.

Preventing Neighborhood Disorder: Comparing Alternative Models of Collective Efficacy Theory Using Structural Equation Modeling

Collective efficacy is a widely studied theoretical framework. Originally operationalized as the combination of social cohesion and informal social control, collective efficacy theory is a predictor of multiple positive outcomes. Conceptual and empirical critiques of collective efficacy theory suggest that social cohesion and informal social control should be modeled as unique constructs. Further, the current model of collective efficacy theory does not include an explicit measure of efficacy. Mutual efficacy, defined as community members' beliefs that collective action will be successful at attaining group goals, will be developed in this manuscript. The purpose of mutual efficacy was to make efficacy an explicit component within collective efficacy theory. Three models of collective efficacy theory are compared in this study: (a) a one-factor model of collective efficacy that combines social cohesion and informal social control, (b) a two-factor model of collective efficacy that models social cohesion as a predictor of informal social control, and (c) a mutual efficacy model where the relationship between social cohesion and informal social control is mediated by mutual efficacy. Results suggest that the two-factor model and the mutual efficacy model both fit the data better than the current model of collective efficacy.

Perceptions of Community Norms and Youths' Reactive and Proactive Dating and Sexual Violence Bystander Action

There is enthusiasm for programs that promote bystander intervention to prevent dating and sexual violence (DSV). However, more information about what facilitates or inhibits bystander behavior in DSV situations is needed. The present cross-sectional survey study investigated whether youth perceptions of adults' behavior and community norms were associated with how frequently youth took action and intervened in DSV situations or to prevent DSV. Specifically, study hypotheses were that youths' perceptions of community-level variables, such as adults' willingness to help victims of DSV or prevent DSV, perceptions of community collective efficacy, and perceptions of community descriptive and injunctive norms disapproving of DSV and supporting DSV prevention, would be associated with how frequently youths took reactive and proactive bystander action. Participants were 2172 students from four high schools in one New England state. ANOVA analyses found that descriptive norms were associated with all actionist behaviors, and perceptions of community cohesion were also consistently associated with them. Injunctive norms were associated, but less consistently, with actionist behaviors. Findings suggest that DSV-related social norms, and descriptive norms and community cohesion in particular, might be relevant to youth DSV bystander behavior.

The Role of Collective Efficacy in Reducing Health Disparities: A Systematic Review

Many improvements in health equity are spearheaded by community collaborations working to change policy and social norms. But how can collective efficacy (CE), defined as the willingness and ability of a group to work toward a common good, be increased? Eight articles reporting on interventions aiming to reduce health disparities by improving CE were found for this systematic literature review. All studies showed improvements in CE and most found reduction in disparities, but operationalization of CE varied. Findings support a model of how CE can address health disparities, which can guide standardization of CE interventions and measures.

Building Engaged Communities—A Collaborative Leadership Approach

Community engagement is essential for building smart cities. While leaders who participate in community leadership development programs create engaged communities, there is a gap in literature on the role leadership programs play in the formation of engaged communities. This conceptual paper examines the relationship between collaborative leadership and leadership development programs in order and their role in fostering engaged communities. Recommendations for future research on building effective leadership programs are proposed.

I think someone is walking with me: the use of mobile phone for social capital development among women in four refugee communities

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a mixed method study of social capital development and use, based on an intervention which provided women from refugee backgrounds with social capital development skills and tools.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 111 Afghan, Burmese and Sudanese women living in Melbourne, Australia, received peer-support training and a free unlimited fixed-dial mobile phone for one year.

Findings

Interview and call log data suggest that the training sessions and mobile phones played important roles in bonding social capital development, resulting in a complex support network among participants. To a lesser extent, there was also evidence of bridging social capital creation. By providing linkages to government institutions through an interpreter service, the mobile phones gave participants easy access to linking social capital, in their heritage language.

Originality/value

The program supplements existing community resources with mobile phone technology to create social capital rich networks within these disadvantaged communities, and the authors describe the community characteristics that make participants amenable to such an intervention.

Busy Streets Theory: The Effects of Community-engaged Greening on Violence

Lack of maintenance on vacant neighborhood lots is associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress for nearby residents. Overgrown grasses and dense brush provide hiding spots for criminals and space to conduct illicit activities. This study builds upon previous research by investigating greening programs that engage community members to conduct routine maintenance on vacant lots within their neighborhoods. The Clean & Green program is a community-based solution that facilitates resident-driven routine maintenance of vacant lots in a midsized, Midwestern city. We use mixed effects regression to compare assault and violent crime counts on streets where vacant lot(s) are maintained by community members (N = 216) versus streets where vacant lots were left alone (N = 446) over a 5-year timeframe (2009-2013). Street segments with vacant lots maintained through the Clean & Green program had nearly 40% fewer assaults and violent crimes than street segments with vacant, abandoned lots, which held across 4 years with a large sample and efforts to test counterfactual explanations. Community-engaged greening programs may not only provide a solution to vacant lot maintenance, but also work as a crime prevention or reduction strategy. Engaging the community to maintain vacant lots in their neighborhood reduces costs and may increase the sustainability of the program.

Living on the Margins of Democratic Representation: Socially Connected Community Responsibility as Civic Engagement in an Unincorporated Area

We examine the civic engagement processes and practices among Viva Live Oak! photovoice project participants residing in an unincorporated area with limited local democratic representation and institutional resources. Eight individual interviews and thirty-one group photovoice meetings were conducted, audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. We describe how social structures of unincorporation shaped community life, and how this unique context informed participants' civic engagement. We argue for a conceptualization of civic engagement that centers a social connection model of community responsibility, to make legible the social, relational, and civic actions of unincorporated area residents.

Problems, perceptions and actions: An interdependent process for generating informal social control

Using two waves of survey data for residents in neighborhoods in Brisbane, this study explores the interdependent relationship between residents' perceptions of neighboring, cohesion, collective efficacy, neighborhood disorder, and the actions they take to address these problems. Our longitudinal results show that residents' perceived severity of a problem helps explain engaging in activity to address the problem. People loitering appeared to be the most galvanizing problem for residents, but had particularly deleterious effects on perceptions of cohesion and collective efficacy. We also find that residents who perceive more neighboring in their local area engage in more public and parochial social control activity and residents who live in collectively efficacious neighborhoods are more likely to engage in parochial social control action. Furthermore, residents who themselves perceive more collective efficacy in the neighborhood engage in more parochial or public social control during the subsequent time period. Importantly, we find strong evidence that residents update their sense of collective efficacy. Perceiving more problems in the neighborhood, and perceiving that these problems are increasing, reduced perceptions of neighboring and collective efficacy over time.

Care Like Kin: Community Based Youth Serving Organizations and the Social Reproduction of Disconnected Youth in Rural America

Increasing economic insecurity faced by older youth in rural America presents a crisis of social reproduction for disconnected youth in these areas. Increasingly community based youth serving organizations (CBYSOs) are recognizing and responding to the social reproduction needs of this particularly vulnerable youth population. Such responses are often hidden from funders, government agencies, and community residents. Yet these institutions play an important substitution function for disconnected youth and provide critical social support and social leverage for this population. Based on case studies of three CBYSOs in the San Joaquin Valley of California, this article explores how and why CBYSOs play a substitution function for disconnected youth in rural communities. It is the argument of this article that the social reproduction work of CBYSOs is undertaken with a ethic of care that may have the capacity to transform the political, social, and economic contexts that face this marginalized youth population.

Increasing overweight and obesity erodes engagement in one's neighborhood by women, but not men

Obesity is socially stigmatized in the U.S., especially for women. Significant research has focused on the role that the social and built environments of neighborhoods play in shaping obesity. However, the role of obesity in shaping neighborhood social structure has been largely overlooked. We test the hypothesis that large body size inhibits an individual's engagement in his or her neighborhood. Our study objectives are to assess if (1) body size (body mass index) interacts with gender to predict engagement in one's neighborhood (neighborhood engagement) and (2) if bonding social capital interacts with gender to predict neighborhood engagement independent of body size. We used data collected from the cross-sectional 2011 Phoenix Area Social Survey (PASS), which systematically sampled residents across four neighborhood types (core urban, urban fringe, suburban, retirement) across the Phoenix Metopolitian Area. Survey data was analyzed using logistic regression for 804 participants, including 35% for whom missing data was computed using multiple imputation. We found that as body size increases, women—but not men—have reduced engagement in their neighborhood, independent of bonding social capital and other key covariates (objective 1). We did not observe the interaction between gender and bonding social capital associated with neighborhood engagement (objective 2). Prior scholarship suggests obesity clusters in neighborhoods due to processes of social, economic, and environmental disadvantage. This finding suggests bi-directionality: obesity could, in turn, undermine neighborhood engagement through the mechanism of weight stigma and discrimination.

Validation of a Collaboration Readiness Assessment Tool for Use by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) Agencies and Partners

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate content and face validity of a collaboration readiness assessment tool developed to facilitate collaborative efforts to implement policy, systems, and environment changes in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed).

METHODS

Evaluation of the validity of the tool involved 2 steps. Step 1 was conducted with 4 subject matter experts to evaluate content validity. Step 2 used an iterative cognitive testing process with 4 rounds and 16 SNAP-Ed staff and community partners to evaluate face validity.

RESULTS

Subject matter experts found that survey items appropriately matched the content area indicated and adequately covered collective efficacy, change efficacy, and readiness. Cognitive testing with SNAP-Ed staff and partners informed modifications and resulted in adequate face validity.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The ability to measure collaboration readiness will allow agencies and community partners that implement SNAP-Ed to target areas that facilitate collaboration efforts needed for policy, systems, and environment change and collective efficacy. Further cognitive testing of the tool with other populations is needed to ensure its applicability and usefulness. Evaluation of the reliability of the tool with a broad range of SNAP-Ed programs and community agencies is also recommended.

Association between Social Capital and Self-Efficacy among Latinas in Nebraska

Ensuring the health and well-being of Latinas is critical given the size of the population and its rapid growth across the United States. Social capital may be a tool for alleviating some of the individual, neighborhood, and societal challenges that Latina immigrants face. This study uses bivariate tests and multivariate regression to assess the association between social capital and self-efficacy among Latina immigrants in the Midwest (N = 94). Self-efficacy was positively correlated with bonding and bridging social capital. Findings from a multiple regression model indicate that bonding and bridging social capital are significantly associated with self-efficacy after adjusting for the effect of related covariates. Public health interventions may benefit from building and fostering bonding and bridging social capital among immigrants as way to improve self-efficacy, promote health, and enhance public health practice.

Predictors of Early Community Involvement: Advancing the Self and Caring for Others

Recent research on community involvement points to the importance of both agentic (advancing the self) and communal motives (serving others) as key predictors, though few studies have examined both simultaneously. At the same time, research has identified generativity, defined as concern for future generations as a legacy of the self, as particularly relevant for community involvement. Moreover, generativity involves both agentic and communal motives, meaning that advancing personal goals and caring for others are integrated in this construct. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how individual differences in attributes pertaining to self and to others-specifically, self-esteem, initiative, and empathy-related to both generativity and community involvement. A sample of adolescents (N = 160; 64% female, M_age  = 17) and a sample of young adults (N = 237; 84% female, M_age  = 20) completed a survey including measures of community involvement and generativity. Generative concern fully mediated the associations between individual differences (self-esteem, initiative, and empathy) and community involvement, suggesting that the early generativity has a role in fostering capacities and contribution in youth. These developmental indicators pertaining to self and others link to actions that benefit the community through a desire to benefit future generations.

Social capital, collective efficacy and the provision of social support services and amenities by municipalities in the Netherlands

Differential provision of local services and amenities has been proposed as a mechanism behind the relationship between social capital and health. The aim of this study was to investigate whether social capital and collective efficacy are related to the provision of social support services and amenities in Dutch municipalities, against a background of decentralisation of long-term care to municipalities. We used data on neighbourhood social capital, collective efficacy (the extent to which people are willing to work for the common good), and the provision of services and amenities in 2012. We included the services municipalities provide to support informal caregivers (e.g. respite care), individual services and support (e.g. domiciliary help), and general and collective services and amenities (e.g. lending point for wheelchairs). Data for social capital were collected between May 2011 and September 2012. Social capital was measured by focusing on contacts between neighbours. A social capital measure was estimated for 414 municipalities with ecometric measurements. A measure of collective efficacy was constructed based on information about the experienced responsibility for the liveability of the neighbourhood by residents in 2012, average charity collection returns in municipalities in 2012, voter turnout at the municipal elections in 2010 and the percentage of blood donors in 2012. We conducted Poisson regression and negative binomial regression to test our hypotheses. We found no relationship between social capital and the provision of services and amenities in municipalities. We found an interaction effect (coefficient = 3.11, 95% CI = 0.72-5.51, P = 0.011) of social capital and collective efficacy on the provision of support services for informal caregivers in rural municipalities. To gain more insight in the relationship between social capital and health, it will be important to study the relationship between social capital and differential provision of services and amenities more extensively and in different contexts.

Interfaith Groups as Mediating Structures for Political Action: A Multilevel Analysis

This study investigates interfaith groups from across the United States to understand how these religious settings may serve as mediating structures to facilitate individual political action. Based on a multilevel modeling analysis with 169 individuals from 25 interfaith groups, we found that core activities of the group, such as group members sharing community information (e.g., announcing upcoming events, political meetings, community issues) or sharing religious information (e.g., educating members about their religion) positively and negatively predicted individual political action as a result of group participation, respectively. Moreover, a sense that the interfaith group served as a community to work for local change, but not trust within the group, predicted political action as a result of group participation. However, this effect for a sense the group served as a community to work for local change was stronger and more positive as the degree of community information sharing in the group increased. These results show that a core activity of sharing community information may enhance the ability of a group to mediate political action. Overall, these findings demonstrate the potential role of interfaith groups to mediate political action, and show the importance of considering both individual and group characteristics when understanding these religious settings. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

Theorizing Critical Placemaking as a Tool for Reclaiming Public Space

As economic inequality and segregation continue to grow in the U.S., psychology has an important role to play in exploring and promoting processes that can disrupt social injustice. This paper identifies the privatization of public space as a social problem that contributes to the entrenchment of social, economic, and racial inequality, and advances "critical placemaking" as a tool for reclaiming public space for public use. Drawing from key concepts in environmental psychology, narrative psychology, and community psychology, the proposed framework seeks to theorize the processes by which placemaking may contribute to transforming community narratives and building more inclusive, participatory, and democratic communities. Policy implications and future directions for empirical work are discussed.

Lamp Lighters and Sidewalk Smoothers: How Individual Residents Contribute to the Maintenance of the Urban Commons

Research on collective efficacy in urban neighborhoods has focused predominantly on whether a community can regulate local behavior and spaces and less on how they do so. This study pursues the latter question by examining the social regularities that create collective efficacy, measured as the behavioral composition of a neighborhood (i.e., the extent to which each individual contributes to a social regularity). This perspective is applied to the database of requests for non-emergency government services received by Boston, MA's 311 system in 2011 (>160,000 requests). The analysis categorized custodians who have used the system to combat physical disorder in the public space (e.g., requesting graffiti removal) into two groups-"typical custodians" who have made one or two requests in a year, and "exemplars" who have made three or more. A neighborhood's collective efficacy in reporting public issues was identified through audits of sidewalk quality and streetlight outages. Analyses revealed a collaborative model of maintenance in which typical and exemplar custodians were each necessary and non-substitutable. A second analysis found that the two types of custodian were associated with different contextual factors, articulating two different pathways from demographic and social characteristics to collective efficacy, suggesting implications for theory and practice.

Influencing Genomic Change and Cancer Disparities through Neighborhood Chronic Toxic Stress Exposure: A Research Framework

Black Americans have disproportionately higher incidence and mortality rates for many cancers. These disparities may be related to genomic changes that occur from exposure to chronic toxic stress and may result from conditions associated with living in racially segregated neighborhoods with high rates of concentrated poverty. The purpose of this article is to present a nursing research framework for developing and testing neighborhood-level interventions that have the potential to mitigate exposure to neighborhood-associated chronic toxic stress, improve individual-level genomic sequelae and cancer outcomes, and reduce cancer health disparities of Black Americans. Public health nursing researchers should collaborate with local officials to determine ways to reduce neighborhood-level stress. Intermediate outcomes can be measured using genomic or other stress biomarkers, and long-term outcomes can be measured by evaluating population-level cancer incidence and mortality.

Social Capital and Fear of Crime in Adolescence: A Multilevel Study

Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the relationships between social capital (at the individual, the neighborhood, and the regional levels) and adolescents' fear of crime, while controlling for the main individual (sociodemographics, television viewing, and bullying victimization), neighborhood (neighborhood size and aggregated victimization), and regional (crime rate and level of urbanization) variables. Data were analyzed using a three-level model based on 22,639 15.7-year-old (SD = 0.67) students nested within 1081 neighborhoods and 19 Italian regions. The findings revealed that individual and contextual measures of social capital, modeled at the individual, neighborhood, and regional levels simultaneously, showed negative associations with adolescents' fear of crime. Males and participants with higher family affluence were less likely to feel fear of crime, whereas victimization, both at the individual and neighborhood levels, had a positive association with fear of crime. Strengths, limitations, and potential applications of the study are discussed.

The Power of Place: Social Network Characteristics, Perceived Neighborhood Features, and Psychological Distress Among African Americans in the Historic Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

African American neighborhoods have been historically targeted for urban renewal projects, which impact social composition and resident's health. The Hill District in Pittsburgh, PA is such a neighborhood. This research sought to investigate the extent to which social networks and perceived neighborhood social cohesion and safety were associated with psychological distress among residents in an African American neighborhood undergoing urban renewal, before the implementation of major neighborhood changes. Findings revealed a modest, significant inverse association between social network size and psychological distress (β = -0.006, p < .01), even after controlling for age, employment, education, and income. Perceived neighborhood safety predicted decreased psychological distress (β = -1.438, p < .01), but not social cohesion, which is consistent with past research. Findings suggest that social networks protect against psychological distress, but neighborhood perceptions are also paramount.

Development, validation, and performance of a scale to measure community mobilization

RATIONALE

Community mobilization approaches (CMAs) are increasingly becoming key components of health programming. However, CMAs have been ill defined and poorly evaluated, largely due to the lack of measurement tools to assess mobilization processes and impact.

OBJECTIVE

We developed the Community Mobilization Measure (CMM), composed of a set of scales to measure mobilization domains hypothesized to operate at the community-level. The six domains include: shared concerns, critical consciousness, leadership, collective action, social cohesion, and organizations and networks. We also included the domain of social control to explore synergies with the related construct of collective efficacy.

METHOD

A survey instrument was developed and pilot tested, then revised and administered to 1181 young people, aged 18-35, in a community-based survey in rural South Africa. Item response modeling and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to assess model fit, dimensionality, reliability, and validity.

RESULTS

Results indicate the seven-dimensional model, with linked domains but no higher order construct, fit the data best. Internal consistency reliability of the factors was strong, with ρ values ranging from 0.81 to 0.93. Six of seven scales were sufficiently correlated to represent linked concepts that comprise community mobilization; social control was less related to the other components. At the village level, CMM sub-scales were correlated with other metrics of village social capital and integrity, providing initial evidence of higher-level validity, however additional evaluation of the measure at the community-level is needed.

CONCLUSION

This is the first effort to develop and validate a comprehensive measure for community mobilization. The CMM was designed as an evaluation tool for health programming and should facilitate a more nuanced understanding of mechanisms of change associated with CM, ultimately making mobilizing approaches more effective.