Association between social capital and adolescent health behaviors

Objective To explore the relationship between social capital and health behaviors of adolescents in southwest China and provide reference for school health promotion.Methods Stratified random sampling was adopted.According to the geographical location of the schools and the grades,a total of 1 885 students from to schools was sampled in Chongqing.The structured questionnaire was used to collect data.Statistical analysis included exploratory and typical correlation analysis.Results The more social capital the youth possessed,the more they were denoted to health promotion lifestyle.Youth who had better family atmosphere,better relationships with siblings,peer,grandparents and teachers (the loods was-0.705,-0.687-0.567,-0.705,-0.536,-0.521,-0.542,-0.711,-0.612,-0.688),as well as high community participation reported higher awareness on health promotion lifestyle (first canonical correlation coefficient,R =0.78).Youth who had high community participation,better relationships with teachers,peers reported more nutritional behaviors,health responsibility behavior and exercise behavior(second canonical correlation coefficient R=0.45 the loads was 0.475,0.411,-0.504,0.426);Better family atmosphere,better filiation,with parents,less close relation with peers and students association correlated (the loads was 0.547,0.431,-0.415,-0.362) with better fulfillment of nutritional behaviors (third canonical correlation coefficient R =0.31).Conclusion There are significant correlation between social capital and health behavior in youth,social capital within and beyond families have significant impact on the fulfillment of health behavior promotion.