Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

The Impact Of Opinion Leaders On The Risk Behaviors Of Homeless Youth: Results Of Dyadic AnalysesGreen, Harold D.; Kennedy, David P.; Tucker, Joan S.; Zhou, Annie Z.Adolescent Friendship NetworksAdolescents, Personal Networks, Peer Influence, Homeless, Substance Abuse, Popular Opinion LeadersFRI.AM2In a previous study investigating opinion leaders’ impact on the risk behavior of homeless youth, we found that the risk behavior of opinion leader (OL)subgroup members is correlated with respondents’ risk behavior, controlling for respondent and network characteristics. That is, the proportion of OLs and theproportion of OLs with a particular characteristic predicted respondent risk behavior. These findings led to multi‐level dyadic analyses that explore what altercharacteristics might directly impact a respondent’s risk behaviors. This study investigates a respondents’ exposure to risk and the likelihood he or she willdrink with or do drugs with one of their network alters. We find that few respondent characteristics, network structure characteristics, network compositioncharacteristics or network subgroup characteristics are predictive of these risk factors, but that alter characteristics are very predictive. In brief, it is not onlyalter characteristics (e.g., gender, homeless status, perceived risk behaviors), but also their structural position (e.g., alter degree, being an isolate) and theirmembership in multiple OL subgroups (core group, those whose opinions matter, community opinion leaders) that are predictive in these models. Further,network position is less predictive of these risk factors than OL subgroup membership. These models will be presented in further detail with attention to therelevance of the findings for intervention design.The Impact Of Peer Social Networks On Adolescent Alcohol UseMundt, Marlon P.Adolescent Friendship NetworksAdolescents, Friendship Network, Peer Effects, Peer Influence, Co‐Evolution Model, Actor‐Based Stochastic ModelingTHURS.AM2Background: Adolescent alcohol abuse is a pervasive public health problem. Friends’ alcohol drinking predicts alcohol use for middle and high school students.Previous adolescent alcohol research, however, lacks estimations of peer effect dynamics beyond ego‐net structures. Methods: The analysis evaluatesadolescent drinking in the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Add Health participants selected up to 5 malefriends and up to 5 female friends from a school roster and self‐reported their alcohol use. The sample consists of 5236 adolescents at 58 schools. Theestimation uses RSIENA to simulate the co‐evolution of adolescent friendship networks and adolescent alcohol drinking from Wave I to Wave II whilecontrolling for age, gender, parental drinking, and family bonding. Results: Meta‐analysis showed significant selection effects in tie creation driven by thetendency to choose friends based on similar alcohol consumption (b=1.11, p