Social Capital and Health of Iranian Women: A Scoping Review Study

Human health and disease are as old as human history. Today, the concept of health is tied to the components of social capital which can act as a shield against stress, depression, anxiety, accident, aging, and various diseases. The present study aimed to review the effect of social capital on women's health.

A scoping review was carried out in five stages: 1-Designing a research question, 2- Searching and extracting research-dependent studies, 3- Selecting related studies, 4- Organizing and summarizing information and data, and 5. Reporting the results. Data collection was done in electronic databases, including MagIran, SID, Iran Doc, IranMedex, Scopus, Google scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, and Embase. The search keywords were women, female, feminine, lady, wife, Iran, Persian, Social capital, health, physical health, mental health, and social health in both Persian and English.

Overall, 15 related articles were included in this review study. These studies were reviewed to organize the findings into three categories: the relationship between social capital with physical health, mental health, and social health.

According to current findings, women's health improves by increasing their social capital which is also increased by more health and education facilities, social participation, trust, and communication with family and friends.