Understanding How Personal Networks Change

描述（由申请人提供）：众所周知，个人的人际网络显著影响他们的身心健康。然而，人们对这些网络如何随时间变化、如何对生活事件作出反应以及如何由个人重建知之甚少，也不太可靠。这意味着，对网络如何影响健康的理解仍然非常有限。该项目旨在解决三个主要问题。首先，拟议的项目将是一个独特的小组研究，通过在一个大样本中多个引出名字的问题，增加时间维度，生成网络结构的丰富图片（而不是受访者的总结评估）。其次，这些数据将揭示个人网络的动态：它们如何变化，是什么使它们变化，以及个人如何适应这些变化。研究结果将表明，哪些人在应对事件和维持社交网络方面能力更强，哪些人能力更差，以及会带来什么样的健康后果。美国目前还没有发表的研究或正在进行的数据收集调查通过结合丰富的网络数据、大样本和面板结构来解决这些问题。第三，拟议的项目将对网络测量方法进行实验，以便对其他样本进行有效的研究，特别是通过比较面对面访谈收集的数据和在互联网上收集的数据。这个项目将描述、跟踪和解释网络的变化和重建。它通过将(1)深入的、多维的、可靠的个人网络测量与(2)面板设计相结合，在(3)一个足够大的、集中的样本中，远远超出了现有的研究。具体来说，拟议中的研究包括三波访谈，间隔18个月，访谈对象分别是21-30岁和50- 70岁的人，每波访谈的大部分时间都用来获取他们个人社会关系的详细描述。这些问题将产生许多个人网络的多维度量。剩下的面试时间将用于测量身体和心理健康、生活事件和个性。行政管理将需要在设计中系统地混合面对面和网络访谈，这将允许评估模式对网络（和其他）措施的影响，并为未来的个人网络研究开发有效的基于网络的工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It is known that individuals' personal networks significantly affect their physical and mental well-being. Yet much less is known - and much less reliably - how those networks change over time, respond to life events, and are reconstructed by individuals, which means that the understanding of how networks affect health remains significantly limited. This project is designed to address three major issues. First, the proposed project will be a unique panel study generating a rich picture of network structure (rather than summary assessments by respondents) via multiple name-eliciting questions in a large sample, adding now the dimension of time. Second, these data will reveal the dynamics of personal networks: how they change, what makes them change, and how individuals adapt to those changes. The study results will indicate which individuals are better- or worse-equipped to respond to events and to sustain their networks - and with what health consequences. No existing American published studies or on-going data-collecting surveys address such issues by combining rich network data, large samples, and a panel structure. Third, the proposed project will conduct experiments on the network-measuring methodology to enable effective studies of other samples as well, in particular, by comparing data gathered in face-to-face interviews with data gathered over the internet. This project will describe, track, and explain network change and reconstruction. It goes far beyond existing studies by combining (1) in-depth, multidimensional, and reliable measures of personal networks with (2) a panel design, in (3) a sufficiently large, yet focused, sample. Specifically, the proposed study consists of three waves of interviews, 18 months apart, of 21-30 and 50-to-70 year-olds, using the bulk of the interview time in each wave to elicit detailed descriptions of their personal social ties. These questions wil yield many multidimensional measures of personal networks. The remainder of the interview time will be devoted to measuring physical and mental health, life events, and personality. The administration will entail systematically mixing face-to-face and web interviewing over the three waves in a design that will allow evaluations of mode effects on network (and other) measures, and development of an effective web-based instrument for future research on personal networks.