Friendship Networks and Alcohol Use in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

描述(申请人提供)：该项目将应用一种新的社会网络分析方法来研究青少年从青春期到成年的饮酒行为及其跨性别和种族/民族群体的决定因素。同伴影响在青少年饮酒理论中发挥着核心作用，也是大多数青少年预防计划的主要关注点。然而，关于同伴和饮酒的研究的局限性，排除了得出同伴关系作为青少年饮酒促成因素的作用的有力结论。研究人员使用社会网络分析来确定全球友谊结构(派系、联系、孤立)和局部结构(二元结构)，以检验同伴影响的理论。然而，诸如标准NEGOPY这样的群体检测方法未能检查这些同龄人群体的构成要素，并且实际上忽视了这样一个事实，即其他类型的网络结构(如三合会)影响儿童对影响的敏感性或他们对态度和行为的发展。我们建议应用一种更复杂的方法，使用被称为p*的随机图分布的指数族，来展示青少年友谊结构是如何由二元组、三元组、四元组(即四人组)以及可能更大的实体组成的；以及如何在这些结构中同时检查选择和影响等同伴效应--这是当前的群体检测方法所不具备的特征。我们的项目有三个具体目标：1.利用纵向友谊数据确定友谊网络对饮酒的影响程度，以及饮酒对友谊选择的影响程度；并在6年的时间里评估同伴影响饮酒的长期影响。标准群体识别方法(NEGOPY)和新的p*方法的比较将决定后一种视角是否对与社会影响和社会选择相关的机制提供了不同的、更复杂的理解。2.调查不同类型的同伴影响(例如，最好的朋友、恋人、密友、朋友的朋友、整个学校)如何同时和前瞻性地与青少年饮酒行为相关联；并探索这些关联是否受到关键网络结构特征(即，大小、密度)的调节。3.确定哪些青少年更有弹性，哪些更容易受到不同类型的支持饮酒的同伴影响(来自目标1和2)，重点关注四个领域的特征：个人因素、学校因素、家庭因素和邻居因素。将使用来自国家青少年纵向研究的纵向友谊网络数据；这是有史以来对青少年友谊网络进行的最大规模的研究，也是唯一具有全国代表性样本的研究。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究将通过提供关于青少年友谊网络对未来酒精使用的长期影响的经验发现，为针对青少年酒精使用的项目提供信息。该项目将突出以预防和保健为目标的适当机制--同行选择和/或同行影响--并确定最容易受到每种机制影响的群体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project will apply a new method of social network analysis to study youth drinking behavior from adolescence into young adulthood and its determinants across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Peer influence plays a central role in theories of adolescent drinking, and is a primary focus of most adolescent prevention programs. However, limitations in the research on peers and drinking preclude drawing strong conclusions about the role of peer relationships as a contributing factor to youth drinking. Researchers have used social network analysis to identify global friendship structures (cliques, liaisons, isolates) and local structures (dyads) to examine theories of peer influence. However, group detection methods such as the standard NEGOPY fail to examine the building blocks of these peer groups, and have virtually ignored the fact that other kinds of network structures (such as triads) affect children's susceptibility to influence or their development of attitudes and behaviors. We propose to apply a more sophisticated approach using the exponential family of random graph distributions, known as p*, to demonstrate how adolescent friendship structures are composed of dyads, triads, tetrads (i.e., groups of four) and possibly larger entities; and how peer effects such as selection and influence can be examined simultaneously within these structures - features that the current group detection methods do not share. Our project has three specific aims: 1. Determine the extent to which friendship networks influence drinking and drinking influences friendship selection using longitudinal friendship data; and evaluate the long-term impact of peer influences on drinking over a 6-year period. A comparison of the standard group identification method (NEGOPY) and the novel p* method will determine whether the latter perspective provides a different, more sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms associated with social influence and social selection. 2. Investigate how different types of peer influence (e.g., best friend, romantic partner, close friends, friends of friends, whole school) are concurrently and prospectively associated with youth drinking behavior; and explore whether these associations are moderated by key network structure characteristics (i.e., size, density). 3. Identify adolescents who are more resilient versus vulnerable to different types of pro-drinking peer influences (from Aims 1 and 2), focusing on characteristics from four domains: personal factors; school factors; family factors; and neighborhood factors. Longitudinal friendship network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent will be used; it is the largest study of adolescent friendship networks ever conducted, as well as the only one with a nationally representative sample. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This study will inform programs that target adolescent alcohol use by providing empirical findings about the long-term effects of adolescent friendship networks on future alcohol use. The project will highlight the appropriate mechanisms to target for prevention and health - peer selection and/or peer influence - and identify groups most susceptible to each mechanism.