e b

The psychosocial construct of “social cohesion, ” understood as social behaviors in-dicating trust, reciprocity, and concern for the well-being of the members of one’s community, is the key determinant of health in the “income inequality and social co-hesion model ” model (Ref. 1, p. 211). Social cohesion is defined as participation in public affairs, civic responsibility or involvement in public life. Social cohesion can be measured with indicators of voting participation, newspaper readership, or num-ber of cultural voluntary associations (Ref. 1, p. 119–120). Here we define social co-hesion as the amount of individual participation in social groups in the community. Indicators of membership in civil organizations, a measure of social cohesion used in the “income inequality and social cohesion ” research program, 1 would be appro-priate according to that definition. But in order for a psychometric measure to have content validity, it must include a representative sample of indicators of the con-struct it is supposed to measure. Current measures of social cohesion downplay or do not include forms of participation in social groups that are characteristic of work-ing class communities such as union membership. 2 Furthermore, these working class forms of cohesion can affect the health of communities through labor and po-litical action (e.g., research on collective control