LECTURES NETWORKS 2
Lecture 1: Introduction
Intervention
Intervention: how can this wicked problem addressed?
Intervention: a combination of program elements or strategies designed to produce
behavior changes or improve situations among individuals, groups or an entire population.
different disciplines use different strategies, approaches when thinking of an intervention.
Intervention strategies: can include educational programs, new or stronger policies,
improvements in the environment, or a health promotion campaign.
Multiple strategies are typically the most effective in producing desired and lasting change.
Implemented in different settings including communities, worksites, schools, health care
organizations, faith-based organizations or in the home.
Multiple settings and using multiple strategies may be the most effective because of the
potential to reach a larger number of people in a variety of ways.
For example; give lectures, workshops, advertise a desired behavior, social support, etc.
From theory to intervention: the process of intervention development
Intervention mapping: a framework for effective decision making at each step in the
intervention development.
Makes planning explicit and transparent.
Facilitates collaborative partners in a multidisciplinary group.
1) What is the problem.
a. Identify the problem and the agents included.
b. Prior research: what did others theorize or find about this problem?
c. Need assessment: what does the target group say about their own.
2) What are the objectives? What is the desired change?
a. What individuals need to learn / do.
b. What must be changed in the organization or community.
What are the determinants of the problem?
c. Personal determinants: individual factors, cognitive factors, etc.
d. External determinants: social and structural factors.
e. What is the evidence that changing these determinants will lead to a desired
change?
f. Who is the target population? Are there sub-populations? (gender, age,
ethnicity, etc.).
3) Identifying potential intervention methods
a. How can the determinants be influenced in order to elicit a desired change?
b. Look into prior research on these methods, where they effective?
c. Translate methods into actual strategies.
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, 4) Design program materials. Pretest material.
5) Implementation of intervention.
6) Monitoring and evaluation. Measuring effects and processes.
Network interventions
Network intervention: people can be effectively influenced through their social network to
adopt their new behavior.
NI is the process of using social networks or social network data to accelerate social change,
generate influence and achieve desirable outcomes.
Network interventions strategies
The strategy describes which component(s) of the social network will be targeted.
Decision is based on the available social network data (e.g., sociogram).
Individual level: targeting individuals in a social network nodes, influencers,
opinion leaders.
Segmentation: targeting a specific group within a social network.
Induction: generating new connections among individuals, e.g., word of mouth.
Induction: generating new connections among individuals, e.g., word of mouth.
Lecture 2: Participants, Power and Inequality in Networks
Social media interventions
Social media interventions: internet-based intervention strategy that exploits the affordance
(functions) of a social media platform to produce behavior change or improve a situation.
Are social media interventions more effective than traditional interventions?
Statistically small but significant effect on health-related behavior.
Theory-driven interventions were more effective.
Interventions that incorporated more behavior change techniques also tended to
have larger effects compared to interventions that incorporated fewer techniques.
Effectiveness was enhanced by the use of additional methods of communication,
e.g., short messages services (SMS), or text messages.
Social media interventions in sexual health promotion
Wicked problem: low sexual health of young, low SES people.
Goal: promoting condom use for STI prevention.
Method: STI prevention messages delivered via Facebook at 2 and 6 months.
Population: Denver CO metropolitan area and in a college community focusing on African-
American and Latino youth.
Experiment: intervention or control group.
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, no real impact.
Limitations of social media interventions
Lack of reliability of information (what does engagement with a post mean?)
Privacy, confidentiality, data security issues.
Information overload.
Self-report is the most often used measure.
Self-selection as opposed to randomization.
Losing lots of participants.
How to choose a social media platform? Functionality
1. Target group
Generational differences in social media use in frequency, preferred platforms.
Gender differences in social media use in type of information searched for.
Sub-target groups may need to be addressed by different methods.
2. Functionality of different social media platforms
What is your goal and how it can be served by what you can do with a certain platform?
Individual identity
The extent to which the social media intervention requires that users reveal their identity.
High-identity
o Facebook, Linked-In, Instagram
o Privacy issues
o Social comparison
Low identity
o Reddit, Twitter, Blogs
o Anonymity attracts trolls
Group identity
The extent to which the SMI enables users to identify themselves with a group and relate to
each other.
Benefits
Sense of belonging to a community-members of which are connected through a
particular topic.
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