key: cord-0739624-09eiud37 authors: Kwon, Youngbum title: Online Social Capital and Health What: We Know, What We Need to Know date: 2020-11-04 journal: J Occup Environ Med DOI: 10.1097/jom.0000000000002076 sha: c28f8d16b1fd7af4f102496929c828a208d9c420 doc_id: 739624 cord_uid: 09eiud37 nan We Need to Know To the Editor: T he COVID-19 has disrupted the way employees work and communicate. As workplaces shut down and employers encourage employees to work from home, the way employees build social connections with others is also changing. The workers, compared to pre-pandemic work circumstances, have become to rely on digital communication technologies to communicate with members of formal and informal groups working within an organization. Accordingly, the organization should focus on the online workplace structures and resources available to employees through social connections with co-workers and peers. Workplace social capital is defined as ''a resource reflecting the character of social relations within the organization, realized through members' levels of collective goal orientation and shared trust'' 1 (p. 540). Whereas we know much about the role that (traditional) social capital in the workplace plays in health outcomes, 2-5 we know comparatively little about the online social capital. Traditional social capital, in the workplace health promotion, has long been claimed to be effective in enhancing health outcomes of employees. 6 Empirical studies published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in the past two decades also show that employees in an environment where social capital is formed and developed tend to have better health outcomes and less perceived stress than those who are not 7-14 (see Table 1 ); yet, none of these works explore the linkages between online social network and health outcomes. One explanation for the dearth of online social capital studies might be that perhaps there has been no need to build online social capital within the workplace. Given we are uncertain when the Given the broad definition of social capital, electronic databases (eg, ABI/INFORM, EBSCO, ISI Web of Knowledge, PsychoInfo, and Google Scholar) were searched for the years 2000-2020. The website of the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine (JOEM) was used for double-checking. The following key terms were used: ''social capital,'' ''social connection,'' ''social network,'' ''bridging social capital,'' and ''bonding social capital.'' I also used forward and backward citation analyses to identify articles and conducted an issue-by-issue search to find if there is a special issue on social capital. In the second phase, I limited articles for review by selecting only the studies investigating health outcomes associated with social capital. Limiting the review in this way provided a clear judgement to select social capital studies published in JOEM. Use of those filters resulted in eight articles in the final review. It is interesting to note that there is no study on social capital and health outcomes for the years 2000-2009. pandemic will end, workers will likely keep the online working environment. With so many unknowns about COVID-19, to enhance or at least maintain employee health during this outbreak, we must uncover the association between online social capital and health outcomes so employers can gain justification for developing a venue for online social capital formation and exchange. Although the linkage between online social capital and health outcomes has not gained much attention in workplace health promotion, communication literature describes that an online network tool contributes to building social capital among peers. 15, 16 More specifically, Ellison et al 16 report that the intensity of Facebook use is positively associated with two basic forms of social capital (ie, bonding and bridging), which subsequently leads to self-esteem and satisfaction with life. Bonding social capital indicates relationships between people in a certain group (homogenous group), whereas bridging social capital refers to connections between people with a different occupational or organizational background (heterogenous group). For instance, co-workers and peers in the same organization can build bonding social capital. If an employee meets someone working in a different industry in a business conference and maintains the relationship with him/her, such social connection can be characterized as bridging social capital. In workplace health promotion, several studies address that the two forms of social capital have a positive influence on employee health (for bonding social capital, see 12, 17 ; for bridging social capital, see. 18 Therefore, to spur future work, I propose the following research question and hypotheses: RQ: In the COVID-19 outbreak, does online social capital positively influence employee health outcomes? H1: Bonding social capital formed online will be positively associated with health outcomes. H2: Bridging social capital formed online will be positively associated with health outcomes. School of Kinesiology University of Mchigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Organizational social capital and employment practices Low workplace social capital as a predictor of depression: the Finnish public sector study Social capital and health: a review of prospective multilevel studies Prospective study of workplace social capital and depression: are vertical and horizontal components equally important? Does low workplace social capital have detrimental effect on workers' health? Social capital and self-rated health: a contextual analysis Does social capital in the workplace predict job performance, work engagement, and psychological well-being? A prospective analysis Does organization matter for health? The association between workplace social capital and self-rated health Exploring the association between social capital and depressive symptoms: results of a survey in German information and communication technology companies Unpacking the associations between perceived cultural support and employee health: the approach of social capital Does workplace social capital buffer the effects of job stress? A crosssectional, multilevel analysis of cigarette smoking among US manufacturing workers The associations between organizational social capital, perceived health, and employees' performance in two Dutch companies Association between workplace social capital and absolute presenteeism: a multilevel study in a Chinese context A longitudinal study of the mental health impacts of job loss: the role of socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and social capital factors Bowling online: social networking and social capital within the organization The benefits of Facebook ''friends:'' social capital and college students' use of online social network sites Investigation into the metric properties of the workplace social capital questionnaire and its association with self-rated health and psychological distress amongst Greek-Cypriot registered nurses: cross-sectional descriptive study Building social capital in healthcare organizations: thinking ecologically for safer care The authors declare no other conflicts of interest. Address correspondence to: Youngbum Kwon, PhD,