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Journal article
An agent-based simulation of persistent inequalities in health behavior: Understanding the interdependent roles of segregation, clustering, and social influence
SSM - population health, v 2, pp 757-769
13 Oct 2016
PMID: 29349187
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Health inequalities are conspicuously persistent through time and often durable even in spite of interventions. In this study, I use agent-based simulation models (ABMs) to understand how the complex interrelationships between residential segregation, social network formation, group-level preferences, and social influence may contribute to this persistence. I use a more-stylized ABM, Bubblegum Village (BV), to understand how initial inequalities in bubblegum-chewing behaviors either endure, increase, or decrease over time given group-level differences in preferences, neighborhood-level barriers or facilitators of bubblegum chewing (e.g., access to bubblegum shops), and agents’ preferences for segregation, homophily, and clustering (i.e., the ‘tightness’ of social networks). I further use BV to understand whether segregation and social network characteristics impact whether the effects of a bubblegum-reduction intervention that is very effective in the short term are durable over time, as well as to identify intervention strategies to reduce attenuation of the intervention effects. In addition to BV, I also present results from an ABM based on the distribution and social characteristics of the population in Philadelphia, PA. This model explores similar questions to BV, but examines racial/ethnic inequalities in soda consumption based on agents’ social characteristics and baseline soda consumption probabilities informed by the 2007–2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Collectively, the models suggest that residential segregation is a fundamental process for the production and persistence of health inequalities. The other major conclusion of the study is that, for behaviors that are subject to social influence and that cluster within social groups, interventions that are randomly-targeted to individuals with ‘bad’ behaviors will likely experience a large degree of recidivism to pre-intervention behaviors. In contrast, interventions that target multiple members of the same network, as well as multilevel interventions that include a neighborhood-level component, can reduce recidivism.
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ABMs of mechanisms contributing to persistent health inequalities.
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Important interdependencies between segregation, social networks, and social influence.
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Segregation and homophily are fundamental to persistence of inequalities.
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Interventions should target multiple members of the same network.
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Details
- Title
- An agent-based simulation of persistent inequalities in health behavior: Understanding the interdependent roles of segregation, clustering, and social influence
- Creators
- Brent A. Langellier - Department of Health Management and Policy, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, United States
- Publication Details
- SSM - population health, v 2, pp 757-769
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative; Health Management and Policy
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000448676800089
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84992379399
- Other Identifier
- 991019169796804721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health