IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/netsci/v4y2016i03p314-335_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Friendship networks and sun safety behavior among children

Author

Listed:
  • TSAI, JENNIFER
  • VALENTE, THOMAS W.
  • MILLER, KIMBERLY A.
  • DE LA HAYE, KAYLA
  • PICKERING, TREVOR A.
  • COCKBURN, MYLES G.

Abstract

Social networks, particularly those defined by friendships, influence many childhood and adolescent health behaviors such as the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as well as diet and physical activity. Few, if any, studies have examined the concordance between friendship networks and sun exposure/safety behaviors. This study examines the friendship networks and sun safety behaviors for a group of fourth and fifth grade students taking part in a larger sun safety intervention, “SunSmart” (n = 128). Intra-class correlation, homophily hypothesis testing, and exponential random graph models were used to test friendship homophily based on sun safety behaviors. Peer Leaders were identified through social network popularity, and sun safety change scores were compared between Peer Leaders and non-leaders. Results show that students cluster based on shared demographic characteristics and some sun safety behaviors, and that there was a trend for Peer Leaders to respond better to the SunSmart intervention than non-leaders. Implications for future sun safety interventions using Peer Leaders as champions for sun safety behavior change are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsai, Jennifer & Valente, Thomas W. & Miller, Kimberly A. & De La Haye, Kayla & Pickering, Trevor A. & Cockburn, Myles G., 2016. "Friendship networks and sun safety behavior among children," Network Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 314-335, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:netsci:v:4:y:2016:i:03:p:314-335_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2050124216000060/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernhard Christopher Dannemann, 2020. "Better Off On Their Own? How Peer Effects Determine International Patterns of the Mathematics Gender Achievement Gap," Working Papers V-433-20, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2020.
    2. Briseño-García, Arturo & William Husted, Bryan & Arango-Herera, Eduardo, 2022. "Do birds of a feather certify together? The impact of board interlocks on CSR certification homophily," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 336-344.
    3. Ana M. Guerra & Felipe Montes & Andrés F. Useche & Ana María Jaramillo & Silvia A. González & Jose D. Meisel & Catalina Obando & Valentina Cardozo & Ruth F. Hunter & Olga L. Sarmiento, 2020. "Effects of a Physical Activity Program Potentiated with ICTs on the Formation and Dissolution of Friendship Networks of Children in a Middle-Income Country," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-21, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:netsci:v:4:y:2016:i:03:p:314-335_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/nws .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.