Understanding the effects of school social networks on young people's health

青少年的健康行为，如吸烟、饮酒和吸毒，是一种“社会”行为，青少年对这些行为的态度和行动受到他们的友谊和认同感的影响。研究表明，随着年轻人在中学结识新朋友，建立牢固的人际关系，发展他们的“身份认同”，这些反过来又会影响年轻人的健康相关行为。年轻人对香烟、酒精和非法药物等物质的使用或拒绝是许多友谊团体自我认同的一个特别重要的因素。例如，有吸烟者和吸食这些物质的“吸毒者”和“吸毒者”，以及可能拒绝这些物质的“足球男孩”和“运动女孩”。这项研究的目的是进一步探索这些想法，并调查学校如何影响学生社交网络的规模、形状、身份和其他特征，以及这些因素与年轻人健康相关行为的各个方面的关系。这项研究将混合使用不同的研究方法，包括对现有量化数据的新分析和对年轻人群体的采访，以提供更明确的证据，说明学校社交网络对年轻人健康的影响，并最终改善公共卫生行动，为这一领域的进一步研究提供信息。

Adolescent health behaviours, such as smoking, drinking and drug use, are ‘social‘ behaviours and young people‘s attitudes and actions relating to these behaviours are influenced by their friendships and developing sense of identity. Research suggests that, as young people meet new friends, form strong relationships and develop their ‘identities‘ at secondary school, these in turn influence young people‘s health-related behaviours. Young people‘s use or rejection of substances such as cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs is a particularly important element in how many friendship groups identify themselves. For example, there are the ‘smokers‘ and ‘pot heads‘ using some or all of these substances and also the ‘football boys‘ and ‘sporty girls‘ who may reject these substances. The aim of this study is to explore further these ideas and investigate how schools influence the size, shape, identity and other characteristics of students‘ social networks and how these relate to aspects of young people‘s health-related behaviours. This study will use a mix of different research methods, including new analyses of existing quantitative data and interviews with groups of young people, to provide clearer evidence about the effects of school social networks on young people‘s health and, ultimately, to improve public health actions and inform further research in this area.