Social network analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) examines social relationships, often to understand the context and ecology of health and healthcare services and systems. Central to SNA is the idea that actors are interdependent and that their interactions form a network that influences outcomes. Specifically, SNA examines patterns of social relations among a set of actors; for example, individuals in a team, employees in an organization, organizations in a geographic region. Actors are connected through social ties such as friendship, information sharing and client referrals. Ties may serve as conduits for resources and information that may be necessary to accomplish goals; for example, implementation. SNA requires drawing clear boundaries based on the primary research question before data collection. Network data includes information about ties among actors; examples of data sources include surveys and interviews. Data analysis is driven by the research question and often involves network structure visualization and measures of actors’ network position.