Social capital is a widely acknowledged candidate for implementing
beneficial democratic processes and promoting public health. Healthy
ties. Social capital, population health and survival traces the path
from the conceptualization to the implementation of social capital. To
provide empirical proof of the effects of social capital on public
health is a serious challenge and the main focus of the book. In the
Nordic countries, personal identification codes linking data from
various sources, nation-wide population registers, nationally
representative and re-tested health surveys, and the long tradition of
epidemiology submit to serve well the research into social capital and
public health. Up-to-date longitudinal data on social capital and health
outcomes are carefully described and reviewed in this book. In Finland,
the Swedish-speaking minority is very long-lived and has better health
as compared with the Finnish-speaking majority.