Valerie A. Haines

Network Range and Health

The inclusion of network concepts in the stress-distress model of health represents a major theoretical advance. Most researchers use the dyadic approach of social network analysis to construct network measures of social support. Working from the argument that network structure and social support are conceptually and empirically distinct, we extend the stress-distress model to include measures of network structure (network range) as predictors of exposure to stress, access to social support, and distress. We find that the density, diversity, and size dimensions of network range affect exposure to stress, access to social support, and distress differentially and that, in each case, their effects are gender-specific.

Exploring the determinants of support provision: provider characteristics, personal networks, community contexts, and support following life events.

To explore the determinants of support provision in the natural disaster context, we followed House (1981) and developed a model that specifies how characteristics of the providers, their personal networks, and the community contexts in which they live facilitate or impede their ability to provide support. All three sets of factors affected support provision during Hurricane Andrew, but the pattern of effects differs for the preparation and short-term recovery phases of the hurricane. Age, income, network density, and local economic conditions had significant effects on support provision in the preparation phase. Income did not have a significant effect on short-term recovery support, but religion, house damage, the size and diversity dimensions of network structure, and the local bonds and sentiments dimensions of community attachment did. After comparing the explanatory power of our model in the two phases, we conclude by investigating the implications of this test for understanding the determinants of support provision more generally.

The Privileging of Communitarian Ideas: Citation Practices and the Translation of Social Capital Into Public Health Research

The growing use of social science constructs in public health invites reflection on how public health researchers translate, that is, appropriate and reshape, constructs from the social sciences. To assess how 1 recently popular construct has been translated into public health research, we conducted a citation network and content analysis of public health articles on the topic of social capital. The analyses document empirically how public health researchers have privileged communitarian definitions of social capital and marginalized network definitions in their citation practices. Such practices limit the way public health researchers measure social capitals effects on health. The application of social science constructs requires that public health scholars be sensitive to how their own citation habits shape research and knowledge.

Occupational Stress, Social Support, and the Buffer Hypothesis

The relationship between occupational stress, social support, and strain was investigated in a series of influential studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This continues to provide the most consistent support for the buffer hypothesis in the stress-strain literature. The authors argue that this support is more tenuous than it appears because these studies have theoretical and methodological limitations. When they are corrected, there is, at best, weak support for the buffer hypothesis in this as in other role domains. However, promising developments in the stress-strain model in other role domains can be incorporated into the occupational context.

Lost in translation: a genealogy of the “social capital” concept in public health

Study objective: To examine the genealogy of the social capital concept in public health, with attention to the epistemological concerns and academic practices that shaped the way in which this concept was translated into public health. Design: A citation-network path analysis of the public health literature on social capital was used to generate a genealogy of the social capital concept in public health. The analysis identifies the intellectual sources, influential texts, and developments in the conceptualisation of social capital in public health. Participants: The population of 227 texts (articles, books, reports) was selected in two phases. Phase 1 texts were articles in the PubMed database with “social capital” in their title published before 2003 (n = 65). Phase 2 texts are those texts cited more than once by phase 1 articles (n = 165). Main results: The analysis shows how the scholarship of Robert Putnam has been absorbed into public health research, how three seminal texts appearing in 1996 and 1997 helped shape the communitarian form that the social capital concept has assumed in public health, and how both were influenced by the epistemological context of social epidemiology at the time. Conclusions: Originally viewed in public health research as an ecological level, psychosocial mechanism that might mediate the income inequality-health pathway, the dominance of the communitarian approach to social capital has given disproportionate attention to normative and associational properties of places. Network approaches to social capital were lost in this translation. Recovering them is key to a full translation and conceptualisation of social capital in public health.

Neighborhood disadvantage, network social capital, and depressive symptoms.

Research on why neighborhood disadvantage matters for health focuses on the capacity of neighborhoods to regulate residents’ behavior through informal social control. The authors extend this research by conducting a multilevel analysis of data from a 1995 telephone survey of 497 residents of 32 neighborhoods in a U.S. city. The authors find that network social capital mediates the contextual effect of neighborhood disadvantage on depressive symptoms and that health effects of network social capital persist when perceived neighborhood disorder, a standard indicator of low informal social control, is controlled for. The findings demonstrate the value of a conceptualization and measurement of network social capital that (1) considers ties that transcend neighborhood boundaries, (2) investigates health benefits of network social capital in the forms of closure and embedded support resources and range and embedded instrumental resources, and (3) uses network data on specific network members with strong and weak ties to respondents.

Social network analysis, structuration theory and the holism-individualism debate

Attempts at developing the theoretical side of social network analysis have not generated a satisfactory account of its methodological suppositions and implications. This paper clarifies the network conception of the relationship between human action and social structure by documenting the convergence of social netwoek analysis with structuration theory on the principle of methodological individualism. It then uses the convergence argument to suggest a new role for social network analysis in the methodological restructuring of modern social theory.

Exploring the structural contexts of the support process: social networks, social statuses, social support, and psychological distress

Despite the long-standing interest of sociologists in the impact of social structure on the psychological well-being of individuals, the structural contexts of the support process remain understudied. To begin to fill this gap, some support researchers have used social statuses to tap location in the social structure. Others have analyzed the interpersonal environments in which individuals are embedded by using quasi-network data that describe categories of alters or, less commonly, network data linked to specific alters. We use network data to test models that examine: (1) direct effects of network structure on perceived adequacy of social support; and (2) their direct and indirect effects (through social support) on psychological distress — net of social status effects. Our results suggest that the social network context is more important in the support process than researchers using quasi-network data have concluded.

Socioeconomic disadvantage within a neighborhood, perceived financial security and self-rated health

We examine whether perceived financial security mediates the association between social deprivation and self-rated health, using data from a 2004 survey of residents of one neighborhood in Calgary (N=441) and 2001 Census data on the 26 Census Dissemination Areas (DAs) that make up this neighborhood. Net of sociodemographic characteristics of residents, DA disadvantage had significant associations with being in fair/poor or very good health as compared to excellent health. Perceived financial security explained part of this association and influenced health over and above individual- and DA-level sociodemographic characteristics. These findings suggest social deprivation and perceptions of financial security are potentially useful intervention targets.

Targeting Social Support: A Network Assessment of the Convoy Model of Social Support

One of the most influential applications of the concepts, methods and measures of social network analysis to the study of the social support transactions of older adults is the convoy model of social support. We draw on recent debates in network methodology to provide an assessment of the convoy model that explores the role of weak ties in the support networks of older adults. The social networks generated by the target diagram which operationalizes the convoy model display the structural and functional characteristics set out in its theoretical arguments. But not all of the ties constituting these networks are conduits of social support and, more importantly, these social networks do not include all supporting and supported others. The target diagram identifies core support networks; therefore, support flowing through weak ties is missed when it is used to set the boundaries of support networks. Expanding our picture of the support networks of older adults to take systematic account of weak ties and the emotional aid, instrumental assistance, and companionship that flow through them will enhance the effectiveness of support interventions that target older adults.