School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Sydney, Sydney 2033, Australia.
Department of Preventive Medicine, Institute for Prevention Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Mar 3;15(3):443. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15030443.
Health information-seeking behaviour of mothers with children five years of age and younger in Vanuatu was examined using the structural properties of social networks. Data were collected from a rural village from two islands and an urban settlement in the capital, Port Vila, by face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Sociometric data on the structure of the network, the characteristics of key informants, and associations with outside sources of health information were analysed as interpersonal predictors of health promotion and behavior change. Rural mothers preferred the health advice of biomedical practitioners for diarrheal disease over traditional custom practitioners. Interpersonal connections were restricted in the urban mother network indicating that mothers were merely acquaintances or do not seek health advice from each other. Our findings suggest that biomedical practitioners are the best option for diffusing health and hygiene information for rural and urban mothers. Traditional healers and paraprofessionals could be strategically used to complete the missing links in network connectedness to optimally spread new information. The novel use of cross-sectional social network data can create a baseline evaluation to purposefully frame a health intervention. Our study provided a unique explanation of how network analysis offers insight into how key players can be identified and the circumstances in which they are likely to be able to influence hygiene practices of their peers.
使用社会网络的结构特性，考察了瓦努阿图五岁及五岁以下儿童的母亲的健康信息寻求行为。通过面对面访谈，使用结构化问卷，从两个岛屿的一个农村村庄和首都维拉港的一个城市住区收集了数据。对网络结构的社会计量数据、主要信息提供者的特征以及与外部健康信息来源的关联，作为人际健康促进和行为改变的预测因素进行了分析。农村地区的母亲更倾向于接受生物医学从业者提供的腹泻病健康建议，而不是传统习俗从业者。城市母亲网络中的人际联系受到限制，这表明母亲们只是熟人，或者彼此之间不寻求健康建议。我们的研究结果表明，对于农村和城市地区的母亲来说，生物医学从业者是传播健康和卫生信息的最佳选择。传统治疗师和准专业人员可以被战略性地利用，以弥合网络联系中的缺失环节，从而最佳地传播新信息。横断面社会网络数据的新颖使用可以创建一个基线评估，有针对性地构建一个健康干预措施。我们的研究提供了一个独特的解释，即网络分析如何提供深入了解如何确定关键参与者，以及他们在哪些情况下可能能够影响同龄人卫生习惯的信息。
