Although there is much debate about the forms social capital can take, there are three main categories:

Bonding capital
Links to people like us based on a sense of common identity – such as family, close friends and people with similar backgrounds who share our culture or ethnicity.

Bridging capital
Links that go beyond a shared sense of identity, for example to distant friends, colleagues and associates who may have different backgrounds to us.

Linking capital
Links to people or groups in different social strata.

In public health social capital can be seen as both a resource to improve health and wellbeing and also a framework for looking at the effectiveness of community initiatives. Following the OECD’s framework for measuring social capital the Office for National Statistics  produces indicators at a UK level across four domains: personal relationships, social network support, civic engagement and trust and cooperative norms.