ERIC Number: EJ1476819
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Aug
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1090-1981
EISSN: EISSN-1552-6127
Available Date: 0000-00-00
The Impact of Social Norms on Diffusion Dynamics: A Simulation of E-Cigarette Use Behavior
Sarah E. Piombo1; George G. Vega Yon2; Thomas W. Valente1
Health Education & Behavior, v52 n4 p428-438 2025
Diffusion of innovations theory can be used to understand how to prevent or slow the spread of harmful behaviors, such as e-cigarette use in adolescent social networks. This study explores how different network intervention strategies could impact diffusion dynamics through network simulations based on observed social norms and e-cigarette use data. Simulations were initialized with baseline network data collected from 10 schools in a prospective cohort study of adolescent social networks and health behaviors in Southern California. Diffusion conditions varied by changes in social norms for intervention nodes (pro-e-cigarette, anti-e-cigarette, or neutral norms) and intervention strategy, where greater pro- and anti-tobacco norms were assigned to 15% of the network based on four intervention seeding conditions: opinion leadership, betweenness centrality, segmentation, and random selection. For each network, simulations were run using the netdiffuseR package in R and multivariate generalized linear models were estimated to examine changes in diffusion dynamics. Diffusion prevalence and rate were greater in denser networks and networks with more initial e-cigarette users. Anti-e-cigarette norms significantly decreased average prevalence across all intervention conditions. Strategically selecting high betweenness centrality nodes and opinion leader nodes significantly decreased the average prevalence of e-cigarette use. The results of this study show that achieving a change in norms for 15% of a network can substantially impact e-cigarette use prevalence. Furthermore, this study enhances our knowledge of how personal and network factors affect diffusion dynamics and demonstrates that targeting social norms through network-based interventions is one avenue for slowing the spread of harmful behaviors.
Descriptors: Health Behavior, Smoking, Behavior Standards, Social Behavior, Intervention, Simulation, Adolescents, Social Networks, Health Promotion, Program Effectiveness, Social Influences, High School Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: R01DA051843; F31DA056189
Author Affiliations: 1University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 2The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA