title: Siblings, friends, course-mates, club-mates: how adolescent health behavior homophily varies by race, class, gender, and health status.
abstract: Many unhealthy behaviors develop during adolescence, and these behaviors can have fundamental consequences for health and mortality in adulthood. Social network structure and the degree of homophily in a network affect how health behaviors and innovations are spread. However, the degree of health behavior homophily across different social ties and within subpopulations is unknown. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by using a novel regression model to document the degree of homophily across various relationship types and subpopulations for behaviors of interest that are related to health outcomes. These patterns in health behavior homophily have implications for which behaviors and ties should be the subjects of future research and for predicting how homophily may shape health programs focused on specific subpopulations (gender, race, class, health status) or a specific social context (families, peer groups, classrooms, or school activities).
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Alabama-Birmingham, Heritage Hall Building, 1401 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152, United States. Electronic address: jddaw@uab.edu.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Daw
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Margolis
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Ashton M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Verdery
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D044469:Racial Groups; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D035781:Siblings / Q000523:psychology*; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: Drinking; Exercise; Homophily; Smoking; Social networks; Television