Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Subst Use Misuse. 2024;59(11):1667-1671. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2024.2359714. Epub 2024 Jun 30.
Peer influence on risky behavior is particularly potent in adolescence and varies by gender. Smoking prevention programs focused on peer-group leaders have shown great promise, and a social influence model has proven effective in understanding adult smoking networks but has not been applied to adolescent vaping until 2023. This work aims to apply a social influence model to analyze vaping by gender in a high school network.
A high school's student body was emailed an online survey asking for gender, age, grade level, vape status, and the names of three friends. Custom Java and MATLAB scripts were written to create a directed graph, compute centrality measures, and perform Fisher's exact tests to compare centrality measures by demographic variables and vape status.
Of 192 students in the school, 102 students responded. Students who vape were in closer-knit friend groups than students who do not vape ( < .05). Compared to males who vape, females who vape had more social ties to other students who vape, exhibiting greater homophily ( < .01). Compared to females who do not vape, females who vape were in closer-knit friend groups ( < .05) and had more ties to other students who vape ( < .01).
Differences in vaping by social connectedness and gender necessitate school and state policies incorporating the social aspect of vaping in public health initiatives. Large-scale research should determine if trends can be generalized across student bodies, and more granular studies should investigate differences in motivations and social influence by demographic variables to individualize cessation strategies.
同伴对危险行为的影响在青少年时期尤为强烈，且因性别而异。针对朋辈群体领袖的预防吸烟项目显示出巨大的潜力，社会影响模型已被证明在理解成人吸烟网络方面是有效的，但直到 2023 年才被应用于青少年吸电子烟行为。本研究旨在应用社会影响模型分析一所高中网络中按性别划分的吸电子烟行为。
通过电子邮件向一所高中的学生群体发送在线调查，询问性别、年龄、年级、吸电子烟状况以及三位朋友的姓名。编写了定制的 Java 和 MATLAB 脚本，以创建有向图、计算中心度测量值，并进行 Fisher 精确检验，比较人口统计学变量和吸电子烟状况的中心度测量值。
在该校 192 名学生中，有 102 名学生做出了回应。吸电子烟的学生比不吸电子烟的学生所在的朋友圈更加紧密（<0.05）。与吸电子烟的男性相比，吸电子烟的女性与其他吸电子烟的学生有更多的社交联系，表现出更强的同质性（<0.01）。与不吸电子烟的女性相比，吸电子烟的女性所在的朋友圈更加紧密（<0.05），与其他吸电子烟的学生的联系也更多（<0.01）。
社交联系和性别差异导致吸电子烟的情况不同，这需要学校和州政府在公共卫生倡议中纳入吸电子烟的社会方面。大规模研究应确定这些趋势是否可以推广到全体学生，更细致的研究应调查人口统计学变量对动机和社会影响的差异，以针对个人制定戒烟策略。
