Psychosocial stress and social capital pathways and health: Perspectives from Lund University, Malmö

AIMS: The aim of this Commentary is to outline a few steps of the process by which psychosocial stress and later social capital have been investigated as health determinants at Lund University, Malmö since the 1980s. References to the international literature and literature from Malmö from the mid-1980s and onwards will be used.

RESULTS: The development of research on psychosocial factors and social capital has followed international progress, with a complementary focus on social capital from the late 1990s onwards. Social participation, entailing a number of social activities, seems to be both the common connection between psychosocial stress theory and social capital and the common denominator between cohesion and structural/network approaches to social capital and health.

CONCLUSIONS: The impact of this research area has been considerable in Sweden. Both psychosocial factors and social capital have been acknowledged as health determinants in national Swedish health policy, although a setback may be discerned in recent years.