Antidepressant use and spatial social capital

Abstract

Social capital may help individuals maintain their mental health. Most empirical work based on small-scale surveys finds that bonding social capital and cohesive social networks are critical for mental well-being, while bridging social capital and diverse networks are considered less important. Here, we link data on antidepressant use of 277,344 small-town residents to a nation-wide online social network. The data enable us to examine how individuals' mental healthcare is related to the spatial characteristics of their social networks including their strong and weak ties. We find that, besides the cohesion of social networks around home, the diversity of connections to distant places is negatively correlated with the probability of antidepressant use. Spatial diversity of social networks is also associated with decreasing dosage in subsequent years. This relationship is independent from the local access to antidepressants and is more prevalent for young individuals. Structural features of spatial social networks are prospectively associated with depression treatment.