School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
Cult Health Sex. 2021 Dec;23(12):1608-1625. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2020.1788725. Epub 2020 Sep 7.
This study analyses large-scale online data to examine the characteristics of a national commercial sex network of off-street female sex workers and their male clients to identify implications for public health policy and practice. We collected sexual contact information from the largest online community dedicated to reviewing sex workers' services in the UK. We built the sexual network using reviews reported between January 2014 and December 2017. We then quantified network parameters using social network analysis measures. The network is composed of 6477 vertices with 59% of them concentred in a giant component clustered around London and Milton Keynes. We found minimal disassortative mixing by degree between sex workers and their clients, and that a few clients and sex workers are highly connected whilst the majority only have one or few sexual contacts. Finally, our simulation models suggested that prevention strategies targeting both sex workers and clients with high centrality scores are the most effective in reducing network connectedness and average closeness centrality scores, thus limiting the transmission of STIs.
本研究分析了大规模的在线数据，以考察全国性交易女性性工作者及其男性客户的网络特征，从而为公共卫生政策和实践提供依据。我们从英国最大的在线社区收集了性接触信息，该社区专门用于评价性工作者的服务。我们使用 2014 年 1 月至 2017 年 12 月期间的报告建立了性网络。然后，我们使用社交网络分析指标来量化网络参数。该网络由 6477 个顶点组成，其中 59%集中在一个以伦敦和米尔顿凯恩斯为中心的巨大组件中。我们发现性工作者和他们的客户之间的度数几乎没有非配性混合，只有少数客户和性工作者之间的联系非常紧密，而大多数人只有一个或几个性接触对象。最后，我们的模拟模型表明，针对具有高中心度得分的性工作者和客户的预防策略是最有效的，可以降低网络连接度和平均接近中心度得分，从而限制性传播感染的传播。
