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Research from across disciplines has demonstrated that social and political contextual factors at the national and subnational levels can impact the health and health behavior risks of individuals. This paper examines the impact of state-level social capital and ideology on individual-level health outcomes in the U.S. Leveraging the variation that exists across states in the U.S., the results reveal that individuals report better health in states with higher levels of governmental liberalism and in states with higher levels of social capital. Critically, however, the effect of social capital was moderated by liberalism such that social capital was a stronger predictor of health in states with low levels of liberalism. We interpret this finding to mean that social capital within a political unit—as indicated by measures of interpersonal trust—can serve as a substitute for the beneficial impacts that might result from an active governmental structure.

Natural resources management in the United States is a complicated endeavor and, although a variety of institutions are involved, most day to day management falls to state natural resource authorities. Given the large percentage of private land in some states and the often opposing interests of the parties, these authorities’ efforts often put them in conflict with land owners. Navigating these conflicts well is important for the effective and efficient management of natural resources in the US and the current paper applies the social science of procedural fairness to identify three critical concerns that should be attended to in these conflicts: (1) the reason for the importance of perceived procedural fairness lies in its ability to signal that the individual is valued in the process, (2) voice in the process and the ability to influence the decision are critical components of perceived procedural fairness in this context, (3) the perception of procedural fairness will be most important in the face of uncertainty.