Pilot Core

试点核心（核心B）将开发和实施创新研究项目，研究社交网络与健康、健康行为和更普遍的福祉的关系。下面，我们概述了我们希望探索的各种想法，并提供了关于四个样本试点的更多细节，这些试点说明了我们将在拟议的哈佛罗伊巴尔中心的主持下进行的研究类型。 这四个为期一年的试点项目分为两类：（1）使用在线社交网络的研究，以促进对网络结构和过程在健康和福祉中的作用的理解;（2）研究在独特的心脏研究社交网络（FHS-Net）中的行为和健康状态的流动，以更好地了解健康和疾病如何在人群中传播。当然，未来的试点项目可能会超越这些重点，但它们仍将侧重于社交网络， 健康 我们的飞行员对“幸福”的概念作了广义的解释。对福祉的可能衡量反映了几种结构，其中任何一种结构的改善都可以说是提高了人类福祉： 健康 健康行为 主观情感状态或特征（如幸福） 生活质量 社会联系和社会参与 我们的总体目标是将我们先前关于网络如何形成和运作的发现转化为更好地理解它们可能被利用来提高福祉的方式。我们相信这项研究有很大的潜力，通过更全面地了解社会对健康行为的影响，以及更全面地阐明这些影响如何取决于人们在社交网络中的嵌入性，来影响干预措施，以改善老年人的健康。 这种嵌入性意味着一个人的健康会影响另一个人的健康。 H其他人一个人的疾病、健康行为或死亡可以通过疾病的非生物传播导致其他人的类似结果。这种“健康联系”的存在--包括亲戚、朋友、同事和邻居之间的联系--意味着需要重新思考卫生政策、临床护理和研究的各个方面。这种方法， 对复杂网络结构中的健康现象进行研究，可以为许多重要问题提供新的线索，包括肥胖和不良健康行为的流行;健康差异;临床和政策干预措施的成本效益评估;以及基于社区的干预措施的功效。探讨这些关键的卫生保健问题，同时考虑到庞大和不断发展的人际网络的重要复杂性， 需要开拓性的方法事实上，即使是研究这种现象所需的数据类型也需要与迄今为止在医疗保健研究中常用的数据明显不同。但从社会网络的角度研究这些现象将产生重要的新见解，这将是非常有用的预防和治疗美国今天面临的严重健康问题。正是出于对新思想、新方法和新数据源的需求，我们渴望创建罗伊巴尔中心，以进行创新 将网络科学应用于健康和福祉研究的试点研究项目，以便将网络科学成果转化为有益于公众健康的成果。 为了与Roybal计划的目标保持一致，即“改善老年人的生活和机构适应社会老龄化的能力”，我们看到了以下试点所涉及的许多重点领域在改善老年人健康和福祉方面的巨大潜力。关于社交网络和健康结果的经典研究表明，社会关系对个人健康的深远影响，表明社会孤立，特别是老年人的社会孤立，与更大的疾病和死亡风险有关。[1]然而 关于社会网络对疾病的发生和病程的影响的机制，或者相反，社交网络如何增强健康，还有很多东西有待了解。这些试点项目的总体目标是加强关于这一问题的知识基础，使我们更接近于了解社会背景的影响，从而提出适当的政策干预措施，使晚年的身体和心理更加健康。

.The Pilot Core (Core B) will develop and conduct innovative research projects examining the ways in which social networks are related to health, health behavior, and well being more generally. Below, we sketch out the kinds of ideas we hope to explore and provide more detail regarding four sample pilots that illustrate the types of research we will conduct under the auspices of the proposed Harvard Roybal Center. These four, one-year pilot projects fall into two categories: (1) studies that use online social networks to advance understanding of the role of network structure and processes in health and well being; and (2) studies that examine the flow of behaviors and health states within the unique Framingham Heart Study Social Network (FHS-Net) in order to better understand how health and illness spread within a population. Future pilot projects may of course move beyond these foci, though they will remain focused on social networks and well being. Our pilots interpret the notion of "well being" broadly. Possible measures of well being reflect several constructs, improvement in any one of which might be said to enhance human well being: ¿ Health ¿ Health behavior ¿ Subjective affective states or traits (such as happiness) ¿ Quality of life ¿ Social connections and social engagement Our overall objective is to translate our prior discoveries about how networks form and operate into a better understanding of the ways in which they might be exploited to enhance well being. We believe this research has great potential to influence interventions to improve the well being of older people through a more comprehensive understanding of social influences on health behaviors and a more comprehensive elucidation of how these influences depend on people's embeddedness in social networks. This embeddedness means that the health of one person affects the healt h of others. Illness, health behavior, or death in one person can contribute to similar outcomes in others, through a non-biological spread of disease. The existence of such "health linkages" - including those between relatives, friends, co-workers, and neighbors - suggests rethinking aspects of health policy, clinical care, and research. This approach to the study of health phenomena in complex network architectures can shed new light on many important problems, including obesity and epidemics of bad health behaviors; health disparities; cost-effectiveness assessments of clinical and policy interventions; and the efficacy of community-based interventions. Exploring these critical health care issues, while taking into account the important complexity of large and evolving networks of people, will require pioneering methods. Indeed, even the types of data required to study such phenomena will need to be markedly different from the data heretofore commonly used in healthcare research. But studying such phenomena from a social network perspective will yield important new insights that will be very useful in preventing and treating serious health problems facing the U.S. today. It is with this need for new ideas, methods, and data sources in mind that we aspire to create this Roybal Center in order to conduct innovative pilot research projects applying network science to the study of health and well being and in order to translate network science findings to benefit public health. In keeping with the aim of the Roybal program to "improve the lives of older people and the capacity of institutions to adapt to societal aging," we see a great deal of potential in many areas of emphasis touched by the pilots below to improve the health and well being of older people. Classic research on social networks and health outcomes has demonstrated the profound impact of social ties on the health of the individual, showing that social isolation, especially among older individuals, is related to greater risk of illness and mortality.[1] Yet much remains to be learned about the mechanisms underlying social network effects on the onset and course of illness or, conversely, how social networks enhance and well being. The overarching goal of these pilot projects is to enhance the knowledge base on this subject so that we move closer to an understanding of social context effects that will suggest appropriate policy interventions to make the later years of life healthier, both physically and psychologically.