Social Resources

Introduction

During the past 25 years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the role of the social environment in matters of health, disease, disability, and illness (Cohen, Gottlieb & Underwood, 2000). In particular, many investigators have narrowed their focus to the personal community in which people are enveloped, examining the ways in which family members, friends, neighbours, and co-workers exercise their influence on a multitude of health behaviours, on morbidity, and even on mortality. Persuaded by the evidence documenting the health-protective effects of these personal communities, researchers have designed a variety of social programmes aimed to remedy deficiencies [Page 908]in certain aspects of the immediate social circle, to enrich its resources, or to compensate for deficiencies by mobilizing support from sources outside the natural network.

Whether conducting basic or intervention research, investigators require measurement tools that are capable of sensitively and reliably gauging relatively objective features of the personal communities that people inhabit, such as their structure and health-related interactions. In addition, there is a need for instruments that assess people's satisfaction with the resources they have received, and measures that tap subjective perceptions of the psychosocial provisions that are available from their social networks. Indeed, the stress-buffering effect of perceived social support has been firmly established in the literature (Cohen & Wills, 1985). In short, depending on the aims of the research, different measurement tools are needed, and each must meet psychometrically acceptable standards of reliability and validity.

Before reviewing specific measures, it is useful to provide an overview of the various dimensions or parameters along which social resources can be measured. Researchers can review these dimensions to identify those that are most relevant to their aims. One comprehensive scheme includes five parameters: (1) the sources of the resources; (2) the types of resources; (3) whether the resources are described or evaluated; (4) whether the resources are received or perceived; and (5) whether the resources flow unidirectionally or bi-directionally (Barrera, 1986).

The first parameter calls attention to the potential value of identifying the particular individuals in the network who actually extend certain resources or from whom the resources are perceived to be available. There is increasing recognition that network members specialize in the kinds of resources they provide, and cannot be substituted for one another in this regard (Cohen, Mermelstein, Kamarck & Hoberman, 1985). Moreover, many support interventions concentrate on improving the quality or augmenting the quantity of the resources provided by particular network members, such as efforts made by home visitors to improve maternal responsiveness to their infants (Olds, Henderson, Chamberlin & Tatelbaum, 1986). The second parameter refers to the varied types of resources and is conventionally designated by the term social support. According to House (1981), social support consists largely of aid, affect, and affirmation, referring to practical help, emotional support, and esteem-raising communications, respectively. In addition to these types of support, socializing and companionship and information and advice are two additional types of social resources that are often represented in measurement tools. Recognizing that different acute stressors or stages of chronic stressors call for different kinds of support, and that the process of stress moderation may differ depending on the kind of support that is measured, it is essential to distinguish among these types of supportive resources.

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