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Adolescents experiencing depressive symptoms tend to withdraw from social interaction, but patterns among Latinx LGBT youth (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) are unclear. Latinx adolescents in the Greater Los Angeles Area (N = 549) were surveyed during two consecutive years, and longitudinal relationships among depressive symptoms, parental support-seeking, and loneliness were examined for differences based on youth's LGBT identity. LGBT identity moderated the relationship between baseline depressive symptoms and subsequent parental support-seeking, such that higher baseline depressive symptoms predicted less subsequent parental support-seeking for non-LGBT youth, but not for LGBT youth. The relationship between parental support-seeking and depressive symptoms, both at Time 2, was moderated by LGBT identity, such that more support-seeking tended to correspond with fewer depressive symptoms for non-LGBT youth, but the opposite tended to occur for LGBT youth. Results suggest a subgroup effect, such that LGBT Latinx adolescents may seek parental support differently than their non-LGBT Latinx peers in the context of depressive symptoms.

This study models how new ideas, practices, or diseases spread within and between communities, the diffusion of innovations or contagion. Several factors affect diffusion such as the characteristics of the initial adopters, the seeds; the structure of the network over which diffusion occurs; and the shape of the threshold distribution, which is the proportion of prior adopting peers needed for the focal individual to adopt. In this study, seven seeding conditions are modeled: (1) three opinion leadership indicators, (2) two bridging measures, (3) marginally positioned seeds, and (4) randomly selected seeds for comparison. Three network structures are modeled: (1) random, (2) small-world, and (3) scale-free. Four threshold distributions are modeled: (1) normal; (2) uniform; (3) beta 7,14; and (4) beta 1,2; all of which have a mean threshold of 33%, with different variances. The results show that seeding with nodes high on in-degree centrality and/or inverse constraint has faster and more widespread diffusion. Random networks had faster and higher prevalence of diffusion than scale-free ones, but not different from small-world ones. Compared with the normal threshold distribution, the uniform one had faster diffusion and the beta 7,14 distribution had slower diffusion. Most significantly, the threshold distribution standard deviation was associated with rate and prevalence such that higher threshold standard deviations accelerated diffusion and increased prevalence. These results underscore factors that health educators and public health advocates should consider when developing interventions or trying to understand the potential for behavior change.

Background: Compared to other racial groups, Hispanic/Latino(a) adolescents experience higher rates of alcohol (ab)use and alcohol-related problems. Evidence suggests there are gender differences in alcohol use patterns indicating the likelihood of gender differences in how various determinants influence alcohol use among the genders. Assessing the mechanisms that contribute to Hispanic adolescents' alcohol use requires an understanding of the multidimensional social and environmental processes that operate together to impact their alcohol use. In this study, we examined socio-ecological determinants of Hispanic adolescent alcohol use by gender. Methods: Data from 10th grade Hispanic/Latino(a) students (N = 781) from four high schools in Los Angeles were used to examine associations between socio-ecological characteristics and adolescent alcohol use by gender. Results: Overall, 37.5% of participants reported past 30-day alcohol use. Among boys, alcohol use was associated with intrapersonal (not qualifying for reduced lunch), interpersonal (mother's education and peer drinking), and institutional (alcohol-prone school club membership) determinants. Among girls, alcohol use was associated with intrapersonal (academic achievement) and interpersonal (parent and peer alcohol use behavior) determinants. Conclusions: Prevention and intervention efforts need to take into consideration the gender differences in social-ecological risk and protective factors when designing educational or intervention programs and services targeted at Hispanic adolescents. This is crucial to addressing multi-component factors that influence their substance use behavior.

Interpersonal violence (IV) is a serious concern for adolescents in the United States that has devastating impacts for individuals and communities. Given the increased importance placed on friendships during adolescence, the purpose of the current study was to examine the extent to which IV experiences cluster within youths' friendship networks. Participants were students (N = 1303) in grades 7th to 10th who completed surveys at the beginning and end of an academic year. Results showed that friends' average perpetration (i.e., the percentage of the friends they nominated who perpetrated IV) was strongly associated with likelihood of individual perpetration at baseline but not at the follow‐up. For victimization, friends' average report of victimization (i.e., the percentage of the friends they nominated who were victimized) was associated with higher likelihood reporting of victimization (at both baseline and follow‐up). Although future research is needed to understand explanatory mechanisms underlying these findings, it is possible that the effectiveness of prevention initiatives may be enhanced by incorporating peer group information. Highlights: This study examined how victimization and perpetration cluster within adolescents' social networks.Utilization of social network analyses allowed us to understand interactions between youth and their peers over time.Longitudinal findings provide support for the importance of victims' peer networks over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies an ecological perspective to the context of community-based participatory research (CBPR). Specifically, it examines how endogenous and exogenous factors influence the dynamics of CBPR partnerships, including the tendency toward reciprocity and transitivity, the organizational type, the level of resource sufficiency, the level of organizational influence, and the perceived CBPR effect on organizations. The results demonstrate that network structure is related to the selection and retention of interorganizational networks over time, and organizations of the same type are more likely to form partnerships with each other. It shows that the dynamics of the CBPR initiative presented in this article were driven by the structure of the interorganizational networks rather than their individual organizational attributes. Implications for sustaining CBPR partnerships are drawn from the findings.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this exploratory study was to validate and extend previous research on social support by identifying which dimensions of social support are most commonly exchanged on health-related social networking sites and how social network structure varies with each support dimension exchanged.MethodsThis research applies a multiple case study approach by examining two social networking sites that focus on pregnancy and prenatal health. For one month, support seeking and providing messages were content analyzed and a social network analysis examined the connections between members.ResultsThe sample size consisted of 525 support-seeking messages and 1965 support-providing messages. Findings indicate that participants requested informational and emotional support more than esteem and network support, with no requests for tangible support. Findings also suggest participants substituted emotional support for informational support when they were unable to provide the information sought. The social network analysis showed that network structure varied across support dimensions, with the informational and emotional support networks having the largest number of members and greatest density and reciprocity.ConclusionsThis study suggests that online support networks are fairly effective in meeting participants' needs. The support dimension sought was generally provided and when it was not another dimension of support may have been substituted; thus, participants may have benefitted in unintended ways. The data also suggest there may be an optimal network size to support member engagement, whereby too large of a network may facilitate diffusion of responsibility and too small a network may not facilitate enough momentum to support a well-connected community.

Injection drug-using men from the US and Mexico who purchase sex in Tijuana, Mexico are at risk for transmitting HIV to their contacts in both countries via syringe sharing. We used social network methods to understand whether place of residence (US vs. Mexico) moderated the effect of emotional closeness on syringe sharing. We interviewed 199 drug-using men who reported paying/trading for sex in Tijuana, Mexico using an epidemiological and social network survey and collected samples for HIV/STI testing. Seventy-two men reported using injection drugs with 272 network contacts. Emotional closeness was strongly associated with syringe sharing in relationship where the partner lives in the US, while the relationship between emotional closeness and syringe sharing was considerably less strong in dyads where the partner lives in Mexico. Efforts to reduce HIV risk behaviors in emotionally close relationships are needed, and could benefit from tailoring to the environmental context of the relationship.

This study evaluated the feasibility of measuring diffusion from a social networking community-level intervention. One year after completion of a randomized controlled HIV prevention trial on Facebook, 112 minority men who have sex with men (MSM) were asked to refer African-American and/or Latino sex partners to complete a survey. Results suggest that, compared to non-referrers, referrers spent more time online, controlling for age, race, education, and condition. Over 60% of referrals reported hearing about the intervention, and over half reported that the referrer talked to them about changing health behaviors. Results provide support and initial feasibility of using social networking for diffusing community-based HIV interventions.

This study investigates potential bias that may arise when surveys include question items for which multiple units are elicited. Examples of such items include questions about experiences with multiple health centers, comparison of different products, or the solicitation of egocentric network data. The larger the number of items asked about each named individual or location, the greater potential interviewer and respondent burden accrues to the naming of more names. Interviewers may be inclined to limit the number of names elicited to reduce the amount of time required to complete the interviews. We tested whether such bias occurred from data collected in northwest Ghana by contrasting group learning with individual learning. The results provided mixed evidence for both group and individual learning and stress the need to take actions such as increased training, change in incentives, and/or monitoring responses to guard against such results.

BackgroundGiven the importance of influence networks in the implementation of evidence-based practices and interventions, it is unclear whether such networks continue to operate as sources of information and advice when they are segmented and disrupted by randomization to different implementation strategy conditions. The present study examines the linkages across implementation strategy conditions of social influence networks of leaders of youth-serving systems in 12 California counties participating in a randomized controlled trial of community development teams (CDTs) to scale up use of an evidence-based practice.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 directors, assistant directors, and program managers of county probation, mental health, and child welfare departments. A web-based survey collected additional quantitative data on information and advice networks of study participants. A mixed-methods approach to data analysis was used to create a sociometric data set (n = 176) to examine linkages between treatment and standard conditions.ResultsOf those network members who were affiliated with a county (n = 137), only 6 (4.4%) were directly connected to a member of the opposite implementation strategy condition; 19 (13.9%) were connected by two steps or fewer to a member of the opposite implementation strategy condition; 64 (46.7%) were connected by three or fewer steps to a member of the opposite implementation strategy condition. Most of the indirect steps between individuals who were in different implementation strategy conditions were connections involving a third non-county organizational entity that had an important role in the trial in keeping the implementation strategy conditions separate. When these entities were excluded, the CDT network exhibited fewer components and significantly higher betweenness centralization than did the standard condition network.ConclusionAlthough the integrity of the RCT in this instance was not compromised by study participant influence networks, RCT designs should consider how influence networks may extend beyond boundaries established by the randomization process in implementation studies.Trial registrationNCT00880126.

ObjectivesWe sought to determine whether a community-based initiative designed to reduce cancer disparities among Pacific Islanders in Southern California increased communications between community-based organizations and university researchers.MethodsWe conducted network analysis among 11 community-based organizations (CBOs) and 5 universities by interviewing 91 and 56 members of these organizations, respectively, at 2 points in time. We estimated random effects probit regression and stochastic actor-oriented network dynamic models.ResultsWe found that, during the 2-year study period, CBOs increased their connectedness with one another (b= 0.44; P < .05) and to the universities (b = 0.46; P < .05), but that university researchers did not increase their connectedness to each other or to CBOs.ConclusionsCancer awareness, cancer education, and access to cancer services are low among Pacific Island groups, and this study provides an initial attempt to reduce these disparities. Community-based initiatives can strengthen a CBO network, creating the potential for increased community-informed cancer research and improved community access to cancer research resources.

Community-based participatory research (CPBR) represents a growing research approach for addressing health disparities disfavoring members of racial/ethnic minorities and other underserved populations in the U.S. While such endeavors are often guided by explicit principles regarding the relationships between communities and universities, few studies have reported on the development or strength of such relationships. This paper describes the methods and preliminary results of a cross-sectional analysis of the ties between community and university organizations in a CBPR network to address cancer disparities between Pacific Islanders in Southern California and the general population. These analyses afford a means of representing the collaborative relationships and may enhance tracking improvements in CBPR links for cancer education, research, and training. Such tracking will help concerned parties understand how academic and community groups collaborate and coordinate their efforts to reach shared and overlapping goals.

Objective: Comprehensive studies examining longitudinal predictors of dietary change during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic are lacking. Based on an ecological framework, this study used longitudinal data to test if individual, social and environmental factors predicted change in dietary intake during the peak of the coronavirus 2019 pandemic in Los Angeles County and examined interactions among the multilevel predictors. Design: We analysed two survey waves (e.g. baseline and follow-up) of the Understanding America Study, administered online to the same participants 3 months apart. The surveys assessed dietary intake and individual, social, and neighbourhood factors potentially associated with diet. Lagged multilevel regression models were used to predict change from baseline to follow-up in daily servings of fruits, vegetables and sugar-sweetened beverages. Setting: Data were collected in October 2020 and January 2021, during the peak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Los Angeles County. Participants: 903 adults representative of Los Angeles County households. Results: Individuals who had depression and less education or who identified as non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic reported unhealthy dietary changes over the study period. Individuals with smaller social networks, especially low-income individuals with smaller networks, also reported unhealthy dietary changes. After accounting for individual and social factors, neighbourhood factors were generally not associated with dietary change. Conclusions: Given poor diets are a leading cause of death in the USA, addressing ecological risk factors that put some segments of the community at risk for unhealthy dietary changes during a crisis should be a priority for health interventions and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Many behavior change programs are delivered in group settings to manage implementation costs and to foster support and interactions among group members in order to facilitate behavior change. Understanding the group dynamics that evolve in group settings (e.g., weight management, Alcoholics Anonymous) is important, yet rarely measured. This article examined the relationship between social network ties and group cohesion in a group-based intervention to prevent obesity in children. Method: The data reported are process measures from an ongoing community-based randomized controlled trial. A total of 305 parents with a child (3-6 years) at risk of developing obesity were assigned to an intervention that taught parents healthy lifestyles. Parents met weekly for 12 weeks in small consistent groups. Two measures were collected at Weeks 3 and 6: a social network survey (people in the group with whom one discusses healthy lifestyles) and the validated Perceived Cohesion Scale. We used lagged random and fixed effects regression models to analyze the data. Results: Cohesion increased from 6.51 to 6.71 (t = 4.4, p < 0.01). Network nominations tended to increase over the 3-week period in each network. In the combined discussion and advice network, the number of nominations increased from 1.76 to 1.95 (z = 2.59, p < 0.01). Cohesion at Week 3 was the strongest predictor of cohesion at Week 6 (b = 0.55, p < 0.01). Number of new network nominations at Week 6 was positively related to cohesion at Week 6 (b = 0.06, p < 0.01). In sum, being able to name new network contacts was associated with feelings of cohesion. Conclusion: This is the first study to demonstrate how network changes affect perceived group cohesion within a behavioral intervention. Given that many behavioral interventions occur in group settings, intentionally building new social networks could be promising to augment desired outcomes.

Low income Hispanic families experience multiple barriers to accessing evidence-based information on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This study utilized a mixed-strategy intervention to create access to information in published bio-medical research articles on ASD by distilling the content into parent-friendly English- and Spanish-language ASD Science Briefs and presenting them to participants using two socially-oriented dissemination methods. There was a main effect for short-term knowledge gains associated with the Science Briefs but no effect for the dissemination method. After 5 months, participants reported utilizing the information learned and 90% wanted to read more Science Briefs. These preliminary findings highlight the potential benefits of distilling biomedical research articles on ASD into parent-friendly educational products for currently underserved Hispanic parents.

Background: Family structure and value system among Hispanic/Latino population are changing. However, very few studies have examined the combination of the influence of family structure, parental and sibling alcohol use, perceived peer norms about drinking, and alcohol use among Hispanic/Latino adolescents. Purpose: This study examined the associations among family structure, parental and sibling substance use, perceived peer norms toward drinking, and alcohol use among a sample of adolescents in the United States. Methods: We assessed cross-sectional data from a 2010 study of 1523 high school students from a school district in Los Angeles. Logistic regression analyses were conducted using SPSS 23. Results: Our results indicate that family structure was not significantly associated with adolescents' alcohol use. Having family members who consumed alcohol, perception of close friends' attitudes toward drinking, and perceived drinking prevalence among peers increased the likelihood of drinking. Discussion: Findings suggest that alcohol use behaviors of members of the family unit, perception of drinking prevalence among peers, and perception of friends attitude to drinking (not their actual drinking behavior) increased the likelihood of drinking. Translation to Health Education Practice: We call for health education specialists to develop awareness programs targeted at correcting adolescents' normative perceptions toward alcohol use prevalence among their peers.