Abstract
Aim
The aim of the study was to investigate what kind of social networks can be identified in the class communities of 13–14-year-old students and how these networks can be utilized in students’ health behaviour change.
Subject and methods
A joint analysis of the results of a national, representative, cross-sectional study on the health behaviour of Hungarian 7th graders and a social network analysis on a sub-sample (40 classes, 680 students) was performed. The random network walk method was applied to identify social networks in classrooms. The assortativity, measuring the similarity of students’ health behaviour within classroom networks, was examined using Moran’s autocorrelation coefficient. Permutation was used to define whether the connections of a given network influence the similarities found.
Results
Classroom networks based on sympathy, rejection and popularity were detected, but only sympathy networks played a role in generating similarities in health behaviours, such as the assessment of health determinants, risk-taking behaviours, online gaming, eating in fast-food restaurants and being on a diet. However, no such link was observed either in connection with regular smoking, alcohol consumption, physical exercising or related to the intake of cola, energy drinks or sweets.
Conclusion
Because sympathy connections depend on individual preferences, the efficiency of interventions aiming at individuals is presumably higher where the role of sympathy relations was verified. Where this was not proven, presumably, community-level interventions are also needed for behaviour change. These results, gained by the innovative use of network analysis methods, can help health professionals implement more targeted and thus more effective behaviour change interventions.
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Availability of data and material
The datasets used and analysed in the study are available on request.
Code availability
Not applicable.
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Funding
The Hungarian Healthstyle Survey was implemented within the Social Renewal Operational Program ‘Development of public health communication’ project (grant no. 6.1.3.B-12/1–2013-0001) funded by the European Social Fund.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data analysis were performed by Gergely Tóth and Péter Varsányi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by József Vitrai and Péter Varsányi. Gergely Tóth and Zoltán Vokó reviewed the earlier versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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All procedures performed in the study were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Varsányi, P., Tóth, G., Vitrai, J. et al. Associations between classroom networks and health behaviour of adolescents. J Public Health (Berl.) 31, 1559–1566 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01690-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01690-z