Feasibility of a Social Network Preventive Intervention

社交网络预防干预的可行性

• 批准号: 8229886
• 负责人: William B. Hansen
• 金额: $ 31.08万
• 依托单位: TANGLEWOOD RESEARCH, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-03-15 至 2014-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8229886
• 关键词: Adolescent; Adopted; Alcohols; Algorithms; Behavior; Characteristics; Communities; Computers; Data; Development; Drug Prevention Program; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Educational Curriculum; Effectiveness; Effectiveness of Interventions; Friends; Friendships; Goals; Grouping; Individual; Inhalant dose form; Intervention; Laos; Late Effects; Link; Logic; Marijuana; Matched Group; Measures; Methods; Modeling; NIH Program Announcements; Nature; Outcome; Performance; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Pilot Projects; Population; Prevention approach; Prevention program; Preventive Intervention; Process; Program Effectiveness; Public Health; Publishing; Randomized; Randomized Controlled Trials; Recording of previous events; Relative (related person); Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Research Support; Risk; Risk Behaviors; Role; Sampling; Schools; Social Interaction; Social Network; Students; Surveys; Testing; Time; Tobacco; Truancy; United States; Work; Youth; base; cost effective; efficacy testing; efficacy trial; elementary school; group intervention; high risk; high school; improved; innovation; interest; meetings; middle school; novel; peer; peer influence; prevent; programs; skills; social; social group; successful intervention; teacher; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this project we will develop an innovative intervention for preventing drug abuse and other unhealthy behaviors. At-risk students share two readily identifiable and school-relevant characteristics - they do not have a strong sense of attachment to school and they do not have positive friends. These characteristics are also strongly related to other risk and protective factors. Previous research demonstrates that congregating high-risk youth only increases their risk and deviance. We propose a strategy that will distribute at-risk students among low-risk groups in a way that maximizes the potential for them to develop friendships with prosocial peers. We will develop a social network intervention strategy that inserts at-risk students into small groups of students increasing their chances of positive social acceptance. In this R34 project we will: 1. Refine a social network survey that will assess students' network of within-grade friends, bonding to school, interests, and values. 2. Develop computer applications that will allow us to test a method for identifying at-risk students. 3. Develop computer applications that will allow us to test alternative methods for creating low-risk groups. (At least four are to be considered - Clustering Nearest Friends, Grouping using the Newman-Girvan algorithm, Weak-Link Clustering, and High-Centrality Seeding.) 4. Develop computer applications that will allow us to test alternative methods for inserting at-risk students into low-risk groups. (At least two are to be considered - Matching Group Scores and Matching Individual Scores.) 5. Collect pretest data from students. 6. Test each alternative for identifying at-risk students, creating low-risk groups, and inserting at- risk students into low-risk groups, comparing the effects of each in order to identify optimal methods for constructing social network intervention groups. 7. Conduct a pilot study of the intervention. We will provide one group of schools with intervention group lists and encourage them to convene groups as often as possible to provide opportunities for social interaction. A second group of schools will serve as delayed-treatment controls. 8. Posttest students and assess the relative effectiveness of the intervention for creating positive friendships among at-risk students and improving their bonding to school. Students in eight middle schools will complete surveys in the spring of two consecutive school years. Data collected during the first year will be used to test at-risk student identification, low-risk group formation, and at-risk student insertion algorithms. Four middle schools will adopt the team assignment intervention during the following school year. Students in all eight middle schools will again be surveyed at the end of the second year. We hypothesize that at-risk students in intervention schools will have more friends, will report increased bonding to school, and will have better attendance, less truancy, less school misbehavior, and improved academic performance compared to at-risk students in control schools. If successful, this intervention will be tested for efficacy of preventing drug use in subsequent randomized control research trials. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Drug abuse continues to be a challenging public health and social issue. Effective, cost- beneficial prevention programs that can be widely disseminated offer significant potential to reduce drug abuse throughout the United States.

描述（由申请人提供）：在这个项目中，我们将开发一种创新的干预措施来预防药物滥用和其他不健康行为。高危学生有两个易于识别且与学校相关的特征：他们对学校没有强烈的依恋感，并且没有积极的朋友。这些特征也与其他风险和保护因素密切相关。先前的研究表明，高风险青少年聚集只会增加他们的风险和越轨行为。我们提出了一项策略，将高风险学生分配到低风险群体中，最大限度地发挥他们与亲社会同龄人发展友谊的潜力。我们将制定一种社交网络干预策略，将高危学生纳入学生小组，增加他们获得积极社会接受的机会。在这个 R34 项目中，我们将： 1. 完善社交网络调查，评估学生的年级内朋友网络、与学校的联系、兴趣和价值观。 2. 开发计算机应用程序，使我们能够测试识别高危学生的方法。 3. 开发计算机应用程序，使我们能够测试创建低风险群体的替代方法。 （至少要考虑四个 - 最近朋友聚类、使用 Newman-Girvan 算法分组、弱链接聚类和高中心性播种。） 4. 开发计算机应用程序，使我们能够测试插入 at- 的替代方法将风险学生划分为低风险群体。 （至少要考虑两个 - 匹配小组分数和匹配个人分数。） 5. 收集学生的预测试数据。 6. 测试每种替代方案，以识别高风险学生、创建低风险群体以及插入高风险学生 将学生分为低风险组，比较每个组的效果，以确定构建社交网络干预组的最佳方法。 7. 对干预措施进行试点研究。 我们将为一组学校提供干预小组名单，并鼓励他们尽可能频繁地召集小组，以提供社交互动的机会。第二组学校将作为延迟治疗对照。 8. 对学生进行后测并评估干预措施在高危学生之间建立积极友谊的相对有效性 并改善他们与学校的联系。 八所中学的学生将在连续两个学年的春季完成调查。第一年收集的数据将用于 测试高风险学生识别、低风险群体形成和高风险学生插入算法。四所中学将在下一学年采取小组作业干预措施。所有八所中学的学生将在第二年年底再次接受调查。我们假设，与对照学校的高危学生相比，干预学校的高危学生将有更多的朋友，与学校的联系会增加，出勤率更高，逃学率更低，学校不良行为更少，学习成绩也有所提高。 如果成功，将在随后的随机对照研究试验中测试这种干预措施预防吸毒的功效。 公共卫生相关性：药物滥用仍然是一个具有挑战性的公共卫生和社会问题。可以广泛传播的有效、成本效益高的预防计划为减少美国各地的药物滥用提供了巨大的潜力。