Social network influences on adolescent substance use: disentangling structural equivalence from cohesion.

ABSTRACT: This study investigates two contagion mechanisms of peer influence based on direct communication (cohesion) versus comparison through peers who occupy similar network positions (structural equivalence) in the context of adolescents' drinking alcohol and smoking. To date, the two contagion mechanisms have been considered observationally inseparable, but this study attempts to disentangle structural equivalence from cohesion as a contagion mechanism by examining the extent to which the transmission of drinking and smoking behaviors attenuates as a function of social distance (i.e., from immediate friends to indirectly connected peers). Using the U.S. Add Health data consisting of a nationally representative sample of American adolescents (Grades 7-12), this study measured peer risk-taking up

SUBMITTER: Fujimoto K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3354645 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature