Social networks and oral health-related risk behaviors in public housing communities

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Social influences are important in the causes of oral health disparities and to changing health-related behaviors in disadvantaged populations. Conceptual models of children’s oral health include dynamic social pathways and the key role of caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. There is a critical lack of information about these pathways, particularly how social influences shape knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to oral health. We propose to conduct a longitudinal sociometric network analysis among residents of public housing to better understand the factors that affect oral health-related risk behaviors. Although network science is relatively new to oral health disparities research, it is a well-established tool in other areas of health research. Understanding the role of social influences on the initiation and progression of oral disease is critical to the development, testing and implementation of effective behavioral interventions. Our rationale is that by using network science to measure social interactions in a community, we will be able to define social network pathways that influence the risk-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors that are associated with oral disease. Using knowledge about social influence that is gained from our research, future interventions may be tested and implemented that will prevent and reduce oral disease for those most at risk for oral disease. Our specific aims are to: (1) Recruit and enroll a community of public housing residents to evaluate the structural properties of their social networks relevant to oral health risk-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors at baseline and at 9- month intervals over two time points, (2) Identify and quantify the exogenous and endogenous factors associated with the observed network structures and, (3) Determine the association between the composition and structure of networks and oral health risk-related knowledge, attitudes and/or behaviors over time. Public housing residents are a high impact, high-reward population for the study of oral health disparities because they involve spatial clustering of poverty and poor health. This produces a unique social climate and associated stigma for study that is not seen in other disadvantaged communities. Our research will study network systems that influence social behaviors that are associated with oral disease and health disparities. Findings from our proposed observational study of public housing communities will help to inform the design of interventions that respond to the complex system dynamics of populations affected by health disparities.