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SUMMARY:Healthy Ageing and Social Capital - Dr Nicolas Sirven\, Institut d
 e Recherche et Documentation en Économie de la Santé\, France and CSC
DTSTART:20080527T160000Z
DTEND:20080527T173000Z
UID:TALK12243@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Flavio Comim
DESCRIPTION:ABOUT THE TALK\n\nPromoting Social Participation for Healthy A
 geing: a counterfactual analysis from the Survey of Health\, Ageing\, and 
 Retirement in Europe (SHARE)\n\nPromoting social participation of the olde
 r population (e.g. membership in voluntary associations) is often seen as 
 a promising strategy for 'healthy ageing' in Europe. Although a growing bo
 dy of academic literature challenges the idea that the link between social
  participation and health is well established\, some statistical evidence 
 suggests that for older people a robust positive relationship may exist. O
 ne reason could be that aged people have more time to take part in social 
 activities (due to retirement\, fewer familial constraints\, etc)\; so tha
 t such involvement in voluntary associations contributes to maintaining ne
 twork size for social and emotional support and preserves individuals' cog
 nitive capacities. Dr Sirven uses SHARE data for respondents aged fifty an
 d over in 2004 in eleven European countries to test these hypotheses by ev
 aluating the contribution of social participation to self-reported health 
 (SRH). The analysis reveals that social participation contributes by three
  percentage points to the increase in the share of individuals reporting g
 ood or very good health on average. Higher rates of social participation c
 ould improve health status and reduce health inequalities within the whole
  sample and within every country. Results suggest that 'healthy ageing' po
 licies based on social participation promotion may be beneficial for the a
 ged population in Europe.\n\nABOUT THE SPEAKER\n\nNicolas Sirven is a rese
 arch fellow in health economics at IRDES (Research\nInstitute for Health E
 conomics) in Paris\, France. He is the Coordinator of the Survey of Health
 \, Ageing\, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). He is also a research associ
 ate at the CSC\, St Edmund's College\, Cambridge. His research interests i
 nclude microeconometrics\, poverty\, health and social issues in economics
 . Dr Sirven has a  PhD (Economics) from the University of Bordeaux\, Franc
 e\, on the topic of Social Capital and Development. He has published in jo
 urnals such as the 'Journal of Development Studies\, 'Journal of Environme
 nt and Development' and 'Social Science and Medicine'.        \n         
LOCATION:St Edmund's College\, Garden Room
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