No association of neighbourhood volunteerism with mortality in New Zealand: a national multilevel cohort study

Abstract

Background The association of social capital with health and mortality is contentious, and empirical findings are inconsistent. This study tests the association of neighbourhood-level volunteerism with mortality. Methods Cohort study of 1996 New Zealand census respondents aged 25–74 years (4.75 million person years) using multilevel Poisson regression analyses. Neighbourhood (average population 2034) measures included indices of social capital (volunteering activities for all census respondents) and deprivation. Results Adjusting for just age and marital status, the mortality rate ratios for people living in the quintile of neighbourhoods with the lowest compared with highest volunteerism were 1.16 (95% confidence interval 1.08–1.24) and 1.09 (1.01–1.18), for males and females, respectively. Adjusting for potential individual-level and neighbourhood-level socioeconomic confounders reduced the rate ratios to 0.94 (0.88–1.01) and 0.92 (0.85–1.01), respectively. There was no significant association with any cause of death, including suicide [rate ratios 0.89 (0.64–1.22) and 0.57 (0.31–1.05), respectively]. Restricting the analyses to only those census respondents living at their census night address for five or more years, and therefore ‘exposed’ to that level of volunteerism for a longer period, did not substantially alter findings. Conclusions This study, one of the largest multilevel studies yet, found no statistically significant independent association of a structural measure of neighbourhood social capital with mortality—including suicide. Assuming social features of neighbourhoods are important determinants of health, future research should examine other features (e.g. social fragmentation) and other outcomes (e.g. behaviour).