Health Research Methodology program, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2012 May 16;12:118. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-12-118.
Social network analysis is an approach to study the interactions and exchange of resources among people. It can help understanding the underlying structural and behavioral complexities that influence the process of capacity building towards evidence-informed decision making. A social network analysis was conducted to understand if and how the staff of a public health department in Ontario turn to peers to get help incorporating research evidence into practice.
The staff were invited to respond to an online questionnaire inquiring about information seeking behavior, identification of colleague expertise, and friendship status. Three networks were developed based on the 170 participants. Overall shape, key indices, the most central people and brokers, and their characteristics were identified.
The network analysis showed a low density and localized information-seeking network. Inter-personal connections were mainly clustered by organizational divisions; and people tended to limit information-seeking connections to a handful of peers in their division. However, recognition of expertise and friendship networks showed more cross-divisional connections. Members of the office of the Medical Officer of Health were located at the heart of the department, bridging across divisions. A small group of professional consultants and middle managers were the most-central staff in the network, also connecting their divisions to the center of the information-seeking network. In each division, there were some locally central staff, mainly practitioners, who connected their neighboring peers; but they were not necessarily connected to other experts or managers.
The methods of social network analysis were useful in providing a systems approach to understand how knowledge might flow in an organization. The findings of this study can be used to identify early adopters of knowledge translation interventions, forming Communities of Practice, and potential internal knowledge brokers.
社会网络分析是一种研究人与人之间互动和资源交换的方法。它可以帮助理解影响循证决策能力建设过程的潜在结构和行为复杂性。进行社会网络分析是为了了解安大略省公共卫生部的工作人员是否以及如何向同行寻求帮助，将研究证据纳入实践。
邀请工作人员回答在线问卷，询问信息寻求行为、同事专业知识的识别以及友谊状况。根据 170 名参与者，开发了三个网络。确定了整体形状、关键指标、最核心的人和经纪人以及他们的特征。
网络分析显示信息搜索网络密度低且局部化。人际联系主要按组织部门聚类；人们倾向于将信息搜索联系限制在部门内的少数几个同事。然而，对专业知识和友谊网络的认可显示出更多跨部门的联系。卫生官员办公室的成员位于部门的中心，跨越部门进行联系。一小部分专业顾问和中层管理人员是网络中最核心的员工，他们也将自己的部门与信息搜索网络的中心连接起来。在每个部门中，都有一些本地核心员工，主要是从业者，他们与邻近的同事联系；但他们不一定与其他专家或经理联系。
社会网络分析方法有助于提供一种系统方法来了解知识在组织中的流动方式。本研究的结果可用于确定知识转化干预措施的早期采用者、形成实践社区以及潜在的内部知识经纪人。
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