Preventive Health Behaviours Among Elderly in India: Does Social Capital Matter?

India's rapidly ageing population faces growing risks of non-communicable diseases, frailty, and functional decline. Engaging in preventive health behaviours such as physical activity, yoga, preventive checkups, cancer screening, and immunisation is key to promoting healthy ageing. However, the influence of social capital on such behaviours among older Indians remains poorly understood. Thus, we aimed at examining the association between domains of social capital and the uptake of preventive health behaviours among older adults (≥ 60 years) in India.

A total of 31,063 respondents in the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI, 2017-2018) were analysed. Four measures of social capital: social participation, friends and networks, instrumental support provision, and perceived neighbourhood safety were the key exposures. Preventive health behaviours included regular physical activity, yoga, adult vaccination, preventive health checkup, and cancer screening. Survey-weighted binary logistic regression models were fitted, adjusting for socio-demographic and psychosocial covariates.

Nearly one-fourth of older adults engaged in regular physical activity (26.2%), 12.3% practised yoga regularly, 6.1% received any adult vaccine, and 9.3% had a preventive health checkup. High social participation (4.2%) and > 3 close friends (3.7%) were uncommon. Older adults with high social participation were significantly associated with adult vaccination (aOR, 3.1; 95% CI, 2.2-4.3), physical activity (aOR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.4-2.5), yoga (aOR, 4.2; 95% CI, 3.3-5.2), preventive health checkup (aOR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.4-2.3), and mammogram examination (aOR, 1.8; 1.0-3.4). Networking with friends and instrumental support provision were significantly associated with physical activity and yoga, and receipt of adult vaccination.

Higher social capital, particularly social participation and networks, and instrumental support provision were positively associated with preventive health behaviours among older Indians, underscoring its potential role in promoting healthy ageing.