Volunteer Movement In The Context Of Social Health Capitalization

Abstract

Among many indicators reflecting national interests, an important role belongs to indicators of the state and social health quality. Everyone is interested in maintaining health, life in comfortable environment, work in favorable conditions, eating organic food, good medical assistance. The deterioration of health indicators is regarded by many analysts as a threat to the social welfare and economic stability of the country, since in modern conditions health is becoming a leading factor financial and social welfare of the state and its individual administrative-territorial entities. The social health of every citizen is a central value at the state level. Only under this condition a comprehensive and harmonious development of each resident of the country and the entire state as a whole may be possible. Social health is a prerequisite for full life; meeting material and cultural needs; participation in social, economic, cultural, scientific and other areas of activity. In this regard, social health becomes the object of public management, the process of its capitalization – the management process as a special type of social interaction, which has stable and regular forms. Social health allows its owner to have an active, full-fledged, full life at the expense of organized interaction within the community. Respectively, social health level will be determined by the capabilities of the system, allowing people to be involved in solving environmental issues, directed at its capitalization through voluntary and, most often, gratuitous participation.

Keywords: Crowdsourcingcapitalizationsocial healthvolunteer movement

Introduction

In the context of national interests of the state, the implementation of the concept of sustainable urban development in order to preserve and capitalize social health involves ensuring the constitutional rights of citizens to a healthy and favorable environment. However, nowadays little attention is being paid to the process that combines people’s efforts as far as the solution of the problems affecting social health are concerned (Izutkin, 2014). The authors consider social health as a system of social, spiritual and psychophysiological features of a person. The features determine the possibility of prosocial activity organization by means of interaction within society (Zotov & Prelikova, 2019). As a result, there is a need for technology development related to the collective solution of environmental problems of the urban environment (Kharchenko, 2008). For these purposes crowdsourcing technology can be used as a voluntary participation without guaranteed compensation (Brabham, 2013). This kind of volunteer movement contributes not only to the capitalization of social health, it is also directed to solving environmental issues of the habitat through the development of modern information and telecommunication technologies, social networks and a variety of interactive internet sites.

Problem Statement

The problem touched upon in this work is caused by the low involvement of the population in the process of capitalization of social heath due to the insufficient use of technology in the socio-ecological sphere that allows interested people to solve socially significant problems aimed at achieving national interests.

Research Questions

Crowdsourcing as a kind of volunteer movement is aimed at mobilizing the resources of interested, caring people through information technology (Kawachi et al., 1999). It opens up new opportunities for revitalization of the population in the context of the capitalization of social health, including:

• solving the problems of the local community comprehensively;

• making optimal use of available human resource;

• predicting the results with great certainty and manage organizational processes;

• analyzing and systematize existing practical experience and its use.

The volunteer movement in the context of the capitalization of social health through crowdsourcing technology has its own characteristics:

• open access to the results of joint activities (Gogoleva, 2010); the finished product quickly and effectively became widespread not only in the local society, but also beyond its borders;

• reducing the time of the assignment due to the involvement of a large number of performers;

• ease of implementation, because the only prerequisite is the existence of social networks or special site;

• low costs due to volunteer work of people who are ready to share their solutions free of charge or for a nominal fee.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the work is the conceptual rationale and implementation of crowdsourcing technology as a kind of volunteer movement in the process of capitalization of social health. The attainment of purpose is possible by solving the next tasks:

• analysis of the ability of community members to build constructive relation with close and distant surroundings;

• identification of motives and forms of public participation in social events;

• identification of the main sources that provides the most objective and relevant information on environmental issues;

• study of the role of the volunteer movement through IT-technologies in the process of capitalization of social health.

Research Methods

The survey was conducted in 2019 in Kursk as a city of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, occupying a median position as far as socio-environmental indicators are concerned, which will allow to extend the finding to most Russian cities. During the study, 402 people chosen from the population of Kursk were interviewed. The selection for the mass survey was formed by respondents aged 18 to 70 years according to the stratified sampling scheme with the organization of steps according to the territorial principle. Primary sociological information was obtained using a combined face-to-face survey (at the place of residence, work or study among gender and age groups that meet the objectives of the study). On the final selection stage quota sample was used (quota by age and gender structure of the adult population). Databases were generated and processed using SPSS Statistics 22.0 software, presentation material was built on Microsoft Excel 2007 program. The social portrait of the respondent is as follows. The social profile of the respondent is as follows: 45 % of men and 55 % of women. The age of the people interviewed is from 18 to 70, a slight predominance of persons aged 56. The proportion of people with higher education is quite large. The socio-demographic indicators presented here, generally, correspond to statistical data for Kursk and confirm the sample’s representativeness.

Findings

Social health is determined by the state of the environment in conjunction with the conditions and lifestyle of people (Kolpina, 2009). Accordingly, the capitalization of social health will be linked to both a certain territory and the population living there (Pye, 1999). The territory is the basis of human existence, because it determines the characteristics of personality, professional activity, quality of life in general (Kawachi & Berkman, 2000). It is necessary that the conditions at the place of residence should correspond to the ideas and desires of the population concerning comfortable living environment.

The capitalization of social health is designed to rationalize the contradictory interaction between individual and public interests for their joint implementation. It acts as the subject of regulation of social relations between members of the urban community, the focus of their interests, activities, its content and intensity (Gubina & Repina, 2009). In the course of the sociological survey, the ability of members of the local community to build constructive relations with close and distant surroundings was analyzed. The results are presented in figure 1 .

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The survey data allow us to talk about a fairly high ability to build constructive relations at the micro level of social relations, in the sphere of everyday life. “The closest environment: relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors are the most important component of the social capital of our citizens” (Reutov & Trishina, 2014, p. 197). They are the people with whom the respondents are ready to build relationships based on social trust and aimed at solving environmental problems in the place of residence (Cohen, 2004). Relatives and friends are core values; most people have warm and good feelings to them. Most of the respondents are ready to build constructive relations with team members, but career claims can increase tension. Relation with neighbors is spoilt by a variety of everyday issues neighbors usually deal with. Ability to build constructive relations among residents of Kursk with a distant environment (local non-profit organizations, business and government) is lower. As the capitalization of social health in our case is considered from the perspective of creating a favorable habitat, which is characterized by of state of the environment in conjunction with the conditions and way of life (Prelikova et al., 2016), the motivational activity of residents of the society in the socio-environmental scope will be of interest. The main motives of participation in public events are an opportunity to benefit people; meeting interesting people; an opportunity to realize own ideas, acquisition of useful connections and acquaintances. The answers to this question are presented in table 1 .

The most common social event in which the respondents of Kursk participated was work dealing with landscaping. ¾ of the respondents took part in socially useful activities: 44 % participated in voluntary activities.

Information and communication processes in modern society determine the dominant views on social health and on the forms of basic social practices concerning its capitalization (Coleman, 1988). It should be noted that Internet and mass media are of great importance as far as formation of civil society is concerned. They are regarded as news distribution channels and feedback mechanism between the state and its residents (Purdehnad, 2010). The residents of Kursk have been asked a question concerning the reliable sources of ecological information. Internet, television, mass media have been mentioned by the respondents (Table 2 ).

The use of Internet establishes feedback with the population and helps to consolidate people in solving environmental problems by means of information and telecommunication technologies. In this regard, the respondents were asked the next question: “Do Internet and social networks contribute to the consolidation of citizen in solving environmental issues?”. The results are presented in figure 2 .

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It is significant that the internet space is considered a platform for the consolidation by ²/₃ of respondents. The internet can act as an organizer of specific environmental activities, implementation of IT-technologies will promote crowdsourcing activity – one of the types of volunteer movement.

Conclusion

Capitalization of social health is realized through people´s participation in the processes of self-organization of the local community, which should be seen as a system of relations between its members creating an enabling environment. This can be done through crowdsourcing which allows using the potential of local society in environmental issues solution. Implementation of such tasks is coordinated by means of information and communication support. Therefore, a volunteer movement organized on the principle of crowdsourcing in the context of capitalization of social health will promote national interest.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the Grant of President of the Russian Federation. MK-788.2020.6.

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