Summary
Contents
In this book, leading methodologists address the issue of how effectively to apply the latest developments in social network analysis to behavioural and social science disciplines. Topics examined include: ways to specify the network contents to be studied; how to select the method for representing network structures; how social network analysis has been used to study interorganizational relations via the resource dependence model; how to use a contact matrix for studying the spread of disease in epidemiology; and how cohesion and structural equivalence network theories relate to studying social influence. The book also offers some statistical models for social support networks.
Epidemiology and Social Networks: Modeling Structured Diffusion
Epidemiology and Social Networks: Modeling Structured Diffusion
Social networks play an important role in the spread of infectious disease, but one that has been largely ignored. Perhaps due to the long and spectacular list of successes produced by medical biology, from vaccines to treatments to cures, disease has come to be framed almost entirely in biological terms. Biological factors clearly play a critical role in the spread of disease, regulating the transmissibility and natural history of the infectious agent. Social factors, however, are also important, as these regulate the patterns of interpersonal contact and thus the structure within which transmission is channeled. In the field of epidemiology, attention has historically been restricted to biological factors. Modeling efforts have focused ...
