Benjamin Cornwell

Age Trends in Daily Social Contact Patterns

Research on older adults’ social integration usually focuses on time-indefinite access to social support, community involvement, and network connectedness. Little research has examined the actual amount of social contact older adults have on a typical day. The author uses nationally representative data on 92,698 adults—collected in the 2003-2009 American Time Use Surveys—to examine age-related trends in rates of everyday contact. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression analyses reveal nonlinear relationships between age and rates of social contact. Older adults have substantially lower rates of social contact than younger and middle-aged adults—especially among women. A significant portion, but not all, of the age-related variation in contact patterns is attributable to life-course factors like living arrangements. The author closes by considering several potential explanations for these trends and by urging social gerontologists to pay closer attention to the causes and consequences of microsocial contact patterns among older adults.

NETWORK POSITION AND SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION: IMPLICATIONS OF PARTNER BETWEENNESS FOR MEN*

This article combines relational perspectives on gender identity with social network structural perspectives on health to understand mens sexual functioning. The authors argue that network positions that afford independence and control over social resources are consistent with traditional masculine roles and may therefore affect mens sexual performance. For example, when a heterosexual mans female partner has more frequent contact with his confidants than he does—which the authors refer to as partner betweenness—his relational autonomy, privacy, and control are constrained. Analyses of data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) show that about a quarter of men experience partner betweennessa and that these men are 92% more likely to report erectile dysfunction. Partner betweenness is strongest among the youngest men in the sample, which may reflect changing conceptions of masculinity in later life. The authors consider several explanations for these findings and urge additional research on the links between health, gender, and network structure.

HIV health center affiliation networks of Black Men Who Have Sex with Men: Disentangling fragmented patterns of HIV prevention service utilization

Background: In the United States, black men who have sex with men (BMSM) are at highest risk for HIV infection and are at high risk for limited health service utilization. We describe HIV health center (HHC) affiliation network patterns and their potential determinants among urban BMSM. Methods: The Mens Assessment of Social and Risk Network instrument was used to elicit HHC utilization, as reported by study respondents recruited through respondent-driven sampling. In 2010, 204 BMSM were systematically recruited from diverse venues in Chicago, IL. A 2-mode data set was constructed that included study participants and 9 diverse HHCs. Associations between individual-level characteristics and HHC utilization were analyzed using Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure. Visualization analyses included computation of HHC centrality and faction membership. Results: High utilization of HHCs (45.9%–70.3%) was evident among BMSM, 44.4% who were HIV infected. Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure revealed that age, social network size, and HIV status were associated with HHC affiliation patterns (coeff., 0.13–0.27; all P < 0.05). With the exception of one HHC, HHCs offering HIV prevention services to HIV-infected participants occupied peripheral positions within the network of health centers. High-risk HIV-uninfected participants affiliated most with an HHC that offers only treatment services. Conclusions: Subcategories of BMSM in this sample affiliated with HHCs that may not provide appropriate HIV prevention services. Using 2-mode data, public health authorities may be better able to match prevention services to BMSM need; in particular, HIV prevention services for high-risk HIV-uninfected men and HIV “prevention for positives” services for HIV-infected men.

Work Schedules and Community Ties

Little is known about how work schedules affect social connectedness beyond family relationships. The authors use detailed time diary data from 12,140 respondents in the 2008 through 2010 American Time Use Surveys to examine how work schedules affect six forms of community involvement. Results show that night and evening shift work reduces community involvement, but only on weekdays. Daytime shifts reduce community involvement when they are very short, when they involve working from 8 to 5 instead of from 7 to 4, and when they are on weekends. These results call into question tacit assumptions about how shift work affects workers’ social lives.

Marijuana Use Among Young Black Men Who Have Sex With Men and the HIV Care Continuum: Findings From the uConnect Cohort

ABSTRACT Background: Young Black men who have sex with men (YBMSM) are at highest risk for HIV seroconversion in the United States. Successful movement through the HIV care continuum is an important intervention for limiting onwards HIV transmission. Objective: Little data exists on how substances most commonly used by YBMSM, such as marijuana, are related to the HIV continuum, which represents the primary aim of this study. Methods: A cohort of YBMSM (n = 618) was generated through respondent-driven sampling. Frequency of marijuana use and marijuana use as a sex-drug were assessed across the HIV care continuum using weighted logistic regression models. Results: Study participants reported more intermittent marijuana use (n = 254, 56.2%) compared to heavy use (n = 198, 43.8%). Our sample contained 212 (34.3%) HIV seropositive participants of which 52 (24.5%) were unaware of their HIV positive status. Study participants who were heavy marijuana users were more likely to be unaware of their HIV seropositive status (AOR: 4.18; 95% CI 1.26, 13.89). All other stages in the care continuum demonstrated no significant differences between those who use marijuana intermittently or heavily or as a sex-drug and nonusers. Conclusions: YBMSM who used marijuana heavily were more likely to be HIV-positive unaware than those who never used marijuana. Findings were inconclusive regarding the relationships between marijuana use and other HIV care continuum metrics. However, knowledge of ones’ HIV status is a critical requirement for engaging in care and may have implications for onwards HIV transmission.

The Social Network Approach in Gerontological Research

The Social Network Approach in Gerontological Research This special issue is the outgrowth of a symposium on social networks and aging organized by Benjamin Cornwell and Christopher Marcum at the 2012 meeting of the Population Association of America. Our recognition of the great potential in marrying gerontology with social network analysis provided the impetus to solicit manuscripts on this topic. Among the 47 generally very good submissions to this issue we selected the eight papers that we considered the most innovative in using social network analysis to inform important concepts that lie at the heart of social gerontological inquiry. We also privileged articles that either directly or indirectly treated social networks as systems of interacting individuals over the more common ego-centered approach. Given the high quality of the submission pool, we wish that we could have published more papers, yet this surplus encouragingly suggests a healthy interest in social network application to gerontological themes. The main motivation behind this special issue is to highlight how social network analysis is being, or can be, used to contribute to long-running social–gerontological dialogs about important phenomena relating to health, family, community, isolation and engagement, and change. As the reader will find, social network analysis offers fruitful and exciting avenues for this line of research, and breathes new life into long-standing social–gerontological dialogs. And, to an extent that we did not anticipate when we first conceived of this special issue, the late-life context—with its unique social processes and challenges—pushes social network analysis itself into new territory, suggesting new directions for further development of network methods and concepts. It is difficult to think of an analytic framework that has had more of an impact, and in such short a time frame, throughout the social sciences as social network analysis. The social network approach (see Freeman, 2004; Scott, 1988; Wellman, 1983) brings with it a wide variety of powerful techniques and tools for studying key social phenomena that have concerned social scientists for over a century. Thanks to the widespread availability of easy-touse computer programs, accessible reference works (e.g., Wasserman & Faust, 1994), and transdisciplinary training programs, the network approach is playing a major role in shaping the social sciences in the 21st century. The power of the social network approach is found in its systematization of the study of existing social–structural concepts and processes, the discovery of new concepts, and its unparalleled opportunities for visualization. These developments have proven particularly useful in social gerontology. Indeed, one of the earliest explicit social network applications in any field was introduced by sociologists Wayne Thompson and Gordon Streib (Thompson & Streib, 1961), which appeared in an edited volume on aging that was compiled in 1961 by the gerontologist Robert Kleemeier. This is only appropriate, as social gerontologists’ level of concern over network-related phenomena has rivaled that of other fields. At least since Elaine Cumming and William Henry’s controversial but influential theory of social disengagement was published that same year (1961), social gerontologists have sought new ways to underscore the importance of the connection between social relations and late life. Social gerontologists understand that it is during periods when individuals face their most personal challenges that social networks seem to play their biggest role.

Social Networks in Later Life

For close to two decades now, research on older adults’ social connectedness has been expanding on conceptualizations of social integration that focus on roles and activities in order to further examine the nature of older adults’ “social networks” A social network refers to a defined set of social actors – in this case, individuals – and the social relationships that connect them to each other in a larger structure. There are several reasons for the shift toward this approach, including the explosive growth of social network analysis as a paradigm throughout the social sciences. Beyond this, researchers continue to uncover evidence of powerful consequences of structural features of social networks for health and well-being, especially in later life. The rapid growth of this field calls for a survey of what is known about social networks in later life. Our goal in this chapter is to provide an overview of insights that have emerged in recent years along these lines. We address research on the structural features and functions of networks in later life, their consequences for important outcomes such as well being, and how these things relate to older adults’ socio-demographic characteristics. Finally, we cover emerging topics in social-gerontological network research, such as interest in electronic social networks.

Unemployment and widespread influenza in America, 1999-2010.

Please cite this paper as: Cornwell B. (2012) Unemployment and widespread influenza in America, 1999–2010. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 6(1), 63–70.

Sequence-Network Analysis: A New Framework for Studying Action in Groups

Research implications Future research that uses time-stamped data can employ network methods to analyze and visualize how group members sequence and synchronize social action. These methods make it possible to study how the structure of social action shapes group and individual-level outcomes.

Switching Dynamics and the Stress Process.

This article shows how maintaining social relationships can be a daily hassle that has implications for the stress process, depending on how often individuals transition, or “switch,” between various social roles and social settings throughout the day. I use nationally representative time-diary data on 7,662 respondents from the 2010 American Time Use Survey to measure individual rates of switching behavior and to examine how it relates to perceived stress. Regression analysis shows that net of how many social roles they play and settings they visit on a given day, individuals who switch more frequently between these elements report higher levels of stress. This finding holds for women but not men, suggesting that switching dynamics are disproportionately stressful for women. I close by discussing the implications of the findings for research on gender and health.