Social Capital and Cultural Health Capital in Primary Care: The Case of Group Medical Visits.

Abstract

This article focuses on an empirical setting that upends the clinician-patient dyadic norm: group medical visits (GMVs), in which multiple patients gather in the same space for medical care, health education and peer support. Our grounded theory analysis draws on participant observation and interviews (N = 53) with patients and staff of GMVs at four safety-net healthcare organisations in the United States. We delineate (1) how group medical visits provide health-focused social networks that facilitate the mobilisation of social capital, (2) how the organisationally embedded relationships that comprise group visits are made possible through extended time that is part of the GMV field and (3) how clinicians have opportunities rarely found in other settings to learn from patients, using knowledge accrued from GMV networks to advance their own skills, thereby converting social capital into provider cultural health capital. GMVs provide a rich empirical site for understanding the ways in which organisational arrangements can shape opportunities for patients and clinicians to cultivate and mobilise social capital and cultural health capital, and in doing so, materially shift experiences of receiving and providing healthcare.