Mental Health
Neighborhood social capital and suicidality during the COVID-19 pandemic in the All of Us Research Program Azuna Sawada* Azuna Sawada Haku Chao Koichiro Shiba
Social capital—community traits such as networks, shared norms, and mutual trust—has been linked to lower suicide risk in neighborhoods. However, research using individual-level data is limited, particularly regarding how this association differs by types of social capital. Using publicly available census data, we assessed pre-pandemic levels of overall social capital and its specific types (bonding, bridging, and linking) at the 3-digit zipcode level in the US. We linked these data with individual-level responses from the All of Us Research Program (n=22,607), including participants who had complete data for all study variables and who completed the following surveys: the basic, lifestyle, and overall health surveys, as well as at least one wave of the COVID-19 Participant Experience Survey. We defined suicidality during the pandemic period as reported thoughts of suicide or self-harm in at least one survey wave between May 2020 and February 2021, using the 9th item of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. We used generalized estimating equations to account for data clustering at the zipcode level. After adjusting for pre-pandemic characteristics (age, sex, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, employment status, homeownership, annual household income, health insurance, and neighborhood factors including poverty rate, unemployment rate, and income inequality), greater bonding social capital was associated with lower odds of suicidal ideation (OR for the highest social capital quintile compared to the lowest quintile = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.68 – 0.96), while there was no evidence of associations with suicidality for all other types of social capital. Bonding social capital—characterized by close ties between members of similar social groups—may be protective against suicidality during the time of crisis.
