Social capital and change in psychological health over time

► Our UK longitudinal study investigates changes in three individual-level social capital proxies and psychological health (PH). ► The unique design employs an autoregressive function to derive the true influence of explanatory variables on PH over time. ► Generalised trust was the only social capital proxy to maintain an association with PH in multivariable models. ► Most considered measures of socioeconomic status and social support were rendered insignificant. ► However, trust could influence psychological health via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in response to perceived stressors.