Are network-based interventions a useful antiobesity strategy? An application of simulation models for causal inference in epidemiology.

ABSTRACT: Recent research suggests that social networks may present an avenue for intervention against obesity. By using a simulation model in which artificial individuals were nested in a social network, we assessed whether interventions targeting highly networked individuals could help reduce population obesity. We compared the effects of targeting antiobesity interventions at the most connected individuals in a network with those targeting individuals at random. We tested 2 interventions, the first "preventing" obesity among 10% of the population at simulation outset and the second "treating" obesity among 10% of the obese population yearly, each in 2 separate simulations. One simulation featured a literature-based parameter for the network spread of obesity, and the other featured an artificiall

SUBMITTER: El-Sayed AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3712657 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature