Social pathways to care: how community-based network ties shape the health care response of individuals with mental health problems

Building Social Capital in University Students: A Physical Education Intervention Program

BACKGROUND

This study examines the effects of physical education on the social capital of university students, focusing on improving family, neighborhood, and academic relationships through group exercise.

METHODS

In Zagreb, Croatia, 976 participants aged 19-20 years participated in a randomized controlled trial. The intervention group (n = 472) engaged in teamwork exercises, and the control group (n = 504) completed individual exercises. The social capital measured in 6 areas was analyzed using linear regression and variance modeling.

RESULTS

Significant improvements in trust and collaboration within the university environment were found in the intervention group. Adjusted analyses showed positive correlations between the physical education intervention and increased trust between teachers and students (β = 0.118, P = .01), among students (β = 0.246, P = .01), and in total social capital (β = 0.617, P = .01). Residence in the parental home was associated with higher social capital. Notably, male and older students reported lower levels of trust and cooperation.

CONCLUSIONS

Physical activity significantly improves the social capital of university students, suggesting the inclusion of group-based physical activities in higher education curricula to promote social inclusion and well-being. This underscores the importance of such interventions for educational policy and program development.

A cross-sectional study of stigma towards opioid users among rural law enforcement and community members in tennessee

BACKGROUND

The U.S. opioid crisis, resulting in nearly 500,000 deaths from 1999 to 2019, has been exacerbated by persistent stigma, which hinders treatment and recovery efforts. This stigma, whether structural, social, or self-imposed, challenges overdose prevention and recovery. Our study aimed to assess and compare levels of stigma towards opioid users among rural law enforcement officers (LEOs) and community members in Tennessee, highlighting rural community-level attitudes.

METHODS

Methods involved surveying two groups: LEOs (N=48) and community members (N=393). Utilizing a Likert Scale based on prior research, the survey probed attitudes toward drug use across four stigma domains: dangerousness, blame, social distancing, and fatalism. Analysis employed standardized scoring and ANOVA for evaluating stigma differences by participant characteristics.

RESULTS

LEOs (75%) and community members (51.7%) predominantly identify drug users as white, with varied perceptions regarding socioeconomic status and employment. Despite similar perceptions, normalized stigma scores revealed statistical differences between groups across stigma domains. ANOVA found no significant impact of participant type or gender on stigma levels, though race/ethnicity and its interaction with gender suggested potential influences on overall stigma score.

CONCLUSIONS

Both LEOs and community members in rural Tennessee hold measurable stigma against opioid users, spanning dangerousness, blame, social distancing, and fatalism domains. These insights highlight the need for further research into both professional and public attitudes toward individuals with opioid or other substance use disorders within shared communities. This research should aim to develop specific stigma-reducing interventions that target both providers and community members.

A network frame offers a promising transdisciplinary tool for understanding complex health and health care system problems like suicide

As health and health care systems continue to face massive challenges from local to global well-being, understanding the processes that lead to improvement or deterioration in human health has embraced a broad range of forces from genes to national cultures. Despite the many efforts to deploy a common framework that captures diverse drivers at scale, the common missing element is the absence of a flexible mechanism that can guide research within and across levels. This hinders both the cumulation of knowledge and the development of a scientific foundation for multiplex interventions. However, studies across disciplines using a wide variety of methods and measures have converged on "connectedness" as crucial to understanding how factors operate in the health space. More formally, a focus on the critical role of the network structure and content of key elements and how they interact, rather than just on the elements themselves, offers both a generalized theory of active factors within levels and the potential to theorize interactions across levels. One critical contemporary health crisis, suicide, is deployed to illustrate the Network Embedded Symbiome Framework. The wide range of health and health care research where networks have been implicated supports its potential but also cautions against inevitable limits that will require creative theorizing and data harmonization to move forward.