Functional and structural clustering of social relationship layers among college students for link prediction with applications to perceived drinking networks.

ABSTRACT: Studies on college drinking-a behavior associated with health risks and reduced productivity-often rely on broadly defined peer or friendship networks. Yet, friendship networks can be further divided into more specific relational types, and the associations between such diverse social ties and drinking ties remain poorly understood. This study adopts a multilayer network framework to conduct a fine-grained examination of ten distinct types of social networks (i.e., layers)-including friendship, leadership, emotional support, and perceived drinking-by analyzing their structural similarity across three levels (node, link, and triad) and along a relationship-axis spectrum. We cluster networks based on these multi-level similarities, identifying three primary clusters (Affiliation, Leadership,

SUBMITTER: Lee E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12647878 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature