As Rovniak began her own National Institutes of Health-funded research exploring how to promote networks of people to walk more consistently in their community, she realized there was no framework available on how to engineer a social network.
“I needed to know what variables to target,” she said. “How do the ‘ingredients’ of a social network work together, and how does the structure of social networks and the physical and virtual environment influence people’s activities?”
By putting the literature on social networks and physical environment approaches together in one place, a more effective recipe for engineering social networks can be assembled, she said. Results were published in BMC Public Health.
Researchers have already identified variables of social networks that can be studied, including behaviors like modeling physical activity for others to observe, tracking and rewarding people’s physical activity and praising people.
“Another variable is the structure of the network, which creates opportunities for the behaviors of social networks to happen,” Rovniak said. “These behaviors can then help promote physical activity.”
Rovniak hopes her work putting key variables related to social networks and the environment together in one place will lead to better research in the field by helping scientists keep better track of what’s already been targeted.
In practical terms, if a researcher wants people to use an exercise device while at their desks, variables can be more easily selected that could help build social networks to support using the device because of Rovniak’s work. From there, the scientist could generate a hypothesis about how these variables will influence physical activity and develop an intervention to test the hypothesis.
“Before, it was tough to create a hypothesis about how to engineer social networks,” Rovniak said. “There are so many variables. Now, with this framework, we can more systematically test and refine hypotheses and work toward developing stronger social network interventions to sustain healthy behaviors.”
Also on this research project are Jennifer Kraschnewski, Christopher Sciamanna, Elizabeth Kiser, Chester Ray, Vernon Chinchilli, Daniel George, all of Penn State College of Medicine; Stephen A. Matthews and Melissa Bopp, Penn State University Park; James F. Sallis, University of California; Melbourne Hovell, San Diego State University; and Ding Ding, University of Sydney.
The National Institutes of Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco CURE funds provided funding. (R00HL088017, CA138192, HL67350)