OBJECTIVES: Since the Lancet Commission report, social capital has been recognized as an important factor in preventing cognitive decline. Although numerous studies have examined this relationship, many do not sufficiently address reverse causality or control for confounding factors. The link between individual structural social capital and cognitive decline can be theoretically grounded in cognitive reserve theory and Folland's investment-in-health framework, in which social capital is conceptualized as a resource contributing to the accumulation of cognitive reserve. METHOD: This study uses the panel structure of the EU-SHARE dataset to control for health behaviors (smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity), health status variables (obesity, depression, diabetes, hearing loss, and limitations in activities of daily living), and sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, urbanicity, and educational attainment). We applied a two-stage predictor substitution (2SPS) approach combined with a random-effects logistic regression model. Cognitive decline was specified as a lagged dependent variable. RESULTS: < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Overall, the findings indicate that higher levels of structural social capital are significantly associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline.
Braun et al. (Fri,) studied this question.