Using SNA to Examine the Long-Term Outcomes of Socially Excluded Adolescents

描述（由申请人提供）：社会排斥被描述为“社会死亡”的一种形式，因为它是许多可能危及生命的身心健康结果的主要风险因素。在青少年中，社会排斥是同伴受害、抑郁和焦虑、吸烟、滥用药物、无保护的性行为和不健康饮食（如肥胖）等有害行为以及校园暴力和其他形式的攻击的一个主要风险因素。促进社会融合的干预措施往往试图弥补个人缺陷，如发展友谊技能或提高社交技能。这些干预措施只取得了中等程度的成功，因为它们没有考虑到间接关系对社会排斥青年的健康和福祉的影响。因此，有一个

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social exclusion has been described as a form of "social death" because it is a major risk factor in many potentially life-threatening physical and mental health outcomes. Among adolescents, social exclusion is a major risk factor in peer victimization, depression and anxiety, engaging in harmful behaviors such as cigarette smoking, substance abuse, unprotected sex, and unhealthy eating (e.g., obesity), and school violence and other forms of aggression. Interventions to promote social integration often attempt to remediate individual deficits, such as developing friendship skills or improving social skills. Suc interventions are only moderately successful because they do not consider the power of indirect relationships to influence the health and well- being of socially excluded youth. Thus, there is an urgent need to investigate the effect of social network variables on outcomes for socially excluded youth. In this study, which is a collaboration between faculty from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, the University of Kentucky, and the College of William and Mary, data from over 1000 high school freshman and sophomores will be gathered twice each year, for two years. This large-scale, longitudinal study will address two important questions. First, what are the network variables that have the greatest influence on maladaptive outcomes for socially excluded youth? Second, what important environmental factors that moderate negative psychological and behavioral outcomes of socially excluded youth? Studies among adults examining constructs such as loneliness, well-being, and health- compromising behaviors experienced or displayed in one part of the network are spread via key individuals (liaisons, or "brokers") located throughout the network. It is through these brokers that the full impact of the "contagion" spreads to distant parts of the network. Recent studies have explored the role of brokers in adolescent social networks, however these studies are based on cross-sectional data and have not explored the relationship between brokers and their relationship to excluded youth. It is hypothesized that socially excluded youth will demonstrate better outcomes to the extent that they have direct or indirect relationships with (a) socially competent individuals and (b) individuals who occupy brokerage roles in the social network.