chiara broccatelli

Purpose This study aims to investigate the dynamics of knowledge sharing in health care, exploring some of the factors that are more likely to influence the evolution of idea sharing and advice seeking in health care. Design/methodology/approach The authors engaged 50 pediatricians representing many subspecialties at a mid-size US children’s hospital using a social network survey to map and measure advice seeking and idea sharing networks. Through the application of Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models, the authors compared the structure of the two networks prior to a leadership program and eight weeks post conclusion. Findings The models indicate that health-care professionals carefully and intentionally choose with whom they share ideas and from whom to seek advice. The process is fluid, non-hierarchical and open to changing partners. Significant transitivity effects indicate that the processes of knowledge sharing can be supported by mediation and brokerage. Originality/value Hospita...

There is growing interest in social network-based programmes to improve health, but rigorous methods using Social Network research to evaluate the process of these interventions is less well developed. Using data from the “STis And Sexual Health” (STASH) feasibility trial of a school-based, peer-led intervention on sexual health prevention, we illustrate how network data analysis results can address key components of process evaluations for complex interventions—implementation, mechanisms of impacts, and context. STASH trained students as Peer Supporters (PS) to diffuse sexual health messages though face-to-face interactions and online Facebook (FB) groups. We applied a Multilevel Exponential Random Graph modelling approach to analyse the interdependence between offline friendship relationships and online FB ties and how these different relationships align. Our results suggest that the creation of online FB communities mirrored offline adolescent groups, demonstrating fidelity of in...

Young people in the UK are at highest risk of sexually transmitted infections and report higher levels of unsafe sex than any other age group. Involving peer supporters in intervention delivery is acceptable to students and effective in reducing risk behaviours via 'diffusion of innovation', particularly where peer supporters are influential in their networks. Informal peer-led interventions offer a useful alternative to peer-led didactic teaching, which has shown limited effects. Building on the successful ASSIST anti-smoking intervention, the 'STis And Sexual Health' (STASH) intervention involves identification and recruitment of the most influential students as peer supporters, training and support to these students by specialist trainers, positive sex and relationships messages, spread by peer supporters to their friendship groups in person and via social media. This protocol describes a feasibility trial of the STASH intervention in six schools. It builds on an ...

Criminal organisations tend to be structured as a network in order to optimise flows of resource exchanges. The consolidation of these structures strengthens the criminal organisation’s capability of becoming more and more efficient over time. Recently, researchers in the field of covert networks have begun to analyse the dynamics of these networks. Thus far, the models and methods used to analyse the temporal dynamics of covert networks have come with a number of limitations. Our approach for analysing temporal dynamics attempts to address some of these limitations. In this article, we extend the use of dynamic line-graphs to bipartite networks for incorporating time directly into the network, and we suggest an alternative way to visualise the evolution of actors’ participation in successive covert actions and events. Our article intends to contribute to the research on dynamic networks by proposing a new approach for representing temporal dynamics in covert networks. After illustr...

There is growing interest in social network-based programmes to improve health, but rigorous methods using Social Network research to evaluate the process of these interventions is less well developed. Using data from the “STis And Sexual Health” (STASH) feasibility trial of a school-based,
peer-led intervention on sexual health prevention, we illustrate how network data analysis results can address key components of process evaluations for complex interventions—implementation,
mechanisms of impacts, and context. STASH trained students as Peer Supporters (PS) to diffuse sexual health messages though face-to-face interactions and online Facebook (FB) groups. We applied a Multilevel Exponential Random Graph modelling approach to analyse the interdependence between offline friendship relationships and online FB ties and how these different relationships align. Our results suggest that the creation of online FB communities mirrored offline adolescent
groups, demonstrating fidelity of intervention delivery. Data on informal friendship networks related to student’s individual characteristics (i.e., demographics, sexual health knowledge and adherence
to norms, which were included for STASH), contributed to an understanding of the social relational ‘building’ mechanisms that sustain tie-formation. This knowledge could assist the selection of opinion
leaders, improving identification of influential peers situated in optimal network positions. This work provides a novel contribution to understanding how to integrate network research with the process evaluation of a network intervention.

Two mode social network data consisting of actors attending events is a common type of social network data. For these kinds of data it is also common to have additional information about the timing or sequence of the events. We call data of this type two-mode temporal data. We explore the idea that actors attending events gain information from the event in two ways. Firstly the event itself may provide information or training; secondly, as co-attendees interact, they may pass on skills or information they have gleaned from other events. We propose a method of measuring these gains and demonstrate its usefulness using the classic Southern Women Data and a covert network dataset.