Neighborhoods and adolescent health-risk behavior: An ecological network approach

Abstract

This study integrates insights from social network analysis, activity space perspectives, and theories of urban and spatial processes to present an innovative approach to neighborhood effects on health-risk behavior among youth. We suggest spatial patterns of neighborhood residents’ non-home routine activities may be conceptualized as ecological, or “eco”-networks, which are two-mode networks that indirectly link residents through socio-spatial overlap in routine activities. We further argue structural configurations of eco-networks are consequential for youth’s behavioral health. In this study we focus on a key structural feature of eco-networks—the neighborhood-level extent to which households share two or more activity locations, or eco-network reinforcement—and its association with two dimensions of health-risk behavior, substance use and delinquency/sexual activity. Using geographic data on non-home routine activity locations among respondents from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS), we constructed neighborhood-specific eco-networks by connecting sampled households to “activity clusters,” which are sets of spatially-proximate activity locations. We then measured eco-network reinforcement and examined its association with adolescent dimensions of health risk behavior employing a sample of 830 youth ages 12-17 nested in 65 census tracts. We also examined whether neighborhood-level social processes (collective efficacy and intergenerational closure) mediate the association between eco-network reinforcement and the outcomes considered. Results indicated eco-network reinforcement exhibits robust negative associations with both substance use and delinquency/sexual activity scales. Eco-network reinforcement effects were not explained by potential mediating variables. In addition to introducing a novel theoretical and empirical approach to neighborhood effects on youth, our findings highlight the importance of eco-network reinforcement for adolescent behavioral health.

Adolescence Is a Sensitive Period for Housing Mobility to Influence Risky Behaviors: An Experimental Design

“…Housing mobility also may disconnect boys from social networks, leaving them vulnerable to falling in with riskier peer groups in their new neighborhoods [14]. Indeed, recent research suggests that youth without dense, secure social networks in their neighborhoods (i.e., strong econetworks) are at a higher risk for health risk behaviors [30]. This remains an important avenue to investigate.…”

Social determinants and health behaviors: conceptual frames and empirical advances

“…Innovations in technology allow for simultaneous and frequent data collection on social and spatial dimensions of activities in real time, creating enhanced opportunities to learn how individuals practice health behaviors as they unfold in usual social and spatial settings [20–22]. In the Human Mobility Project, Palmer and colleagues tested the feasibility of administering dynamic, location-based surveys by asking participants to download an app and install it on their phones, thereby gathering data on the phone’s positioning as participants moved through their daily routines and completed the surveys [23].…”

Ecological Networks and Neighborhood Social Organization

“…The econetwork approach, however, is not intended to proxy the actual network of established social ties but to capture the potential for contact in public space through uncovering the structure of shared routine activities. In the only extant empirical evaluation of econetwork effects, Browning, Soller, and Jackson (2015) examine the cross-sectional link between a measure of econetwork intensity and adolescent risk behavior. They find that higher-intensity econetworks exert a protective effect on delinquency and substance use.…”