Identifying peer effects using spatial analysis: the role of peers on risky sexual behavior

Abstract

This paper explores the role of peer effects on early sexual debut for a sample of adolescents using data from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health (Add Health). Most studies analyzing peer influences ignore the “reflection” problem that occurs with studying peer effects. To address the reflection problem, this paper employs a spatial econometric approach to estimate a social interactions model. This is the first study in the literature on adolescent risky sexual behavior to use this approach to estimate peer effects. Similar to other research on peer effects and adolescent risky sexual behavior, this paper finds the existence of peer effects. However, the more vital outcome from this study is that older and male peers increase the likelihood of adolescent early sexual debut, while peers whose mothers are more open about sexual activity decrease adolescent risky sexual behavior. This methodology can help further our knowledge about the social context that influences adolescent sexual behavior.

Young Men’s Social Network Characteristics and Associations with Sexual Partnership Concurrency in Tanzania

“…We also found that younger men in the camps who had older, rather than younger, friends in their networks were more likely to engage in concurrency. This finding is consistent with other studies showing that adolescents with older friendship networks are more likely to engage in sexual risk behaviors [7, 36]. Several studies from Tanzania have shown that young men engage in concurrency to prove their success with women to their peers and contribute to the norm that young men need multiple partners to satisfy their sexual needs [23, 54].…”

“…The theory of social influence suggests that men may behave according to the behaviors or expectations of their social networks [5]. Empirical support for the theory among studies of male adolescents have found an association between networks and several HIV risk behaviors, including having sex with multiple partners [6], early sexual debut [7], and condomless sex [8]. …”

“…Younger adolescents are also more likely to model the behavior of their older peers. Studies among U.S. adolescents showed that adolescents with older friendship networks, compared to younger, were more likely to engage in sexual risk behaviors, such as early sexual debut [7, 36]. In previous work with young men in Dar es Salaam, the prevalence of concurrency steadily increased with age from 19, 28, 38, and 44 % for 16, 17, 18, and 19 year olds respectively, suggesting that concurrency was more common at older ages [24].…”

Evidence of social network influence on multiple HIV risk behaviors and normative beliefs among young Tanzanian men

“…Social networks have been shown to influence a number of HIV risk behaviors including condom use (Barrington et al, 2009), sexual partnership concurrency (Yamanis, Fisher, Moody, & Kajula, 2015), early sexual debut (Ajilore, 2015), as well as drug use and needle sharing (De, Cox, Boivin, Platt, & Jolly, 2007; Lakon, Ennett, & Norton, 2006). These studies have highlighted the important role that peer characteristics (Ajilore, 2015), perceived descriptive norms of network members (Barrington et al, 2009), network structure and composition (De et al, 2007), as well as the interaction between network closeness and descriptive norms (Yamanis et al, 2015) may play in shaping HIV risk behaviors.…”

A social network analysis of substance use among immigrant adolescents in six European cities

“…It is now well acknowledged that adolescents tend to adopt health behaviours that are similar to their friends' behaviours, and this has been shown in a range of domains such as substance use, nutrition, and sexual activity (Ajilore, 2015;Clark & Loheac, 2007;Ennett et al, 2006;Kobus, 2003;McGloin et al, 2014;Simons-Morton & Farhat, 2010; T. W. Valente et al, 2004). Moreover, exposure to substance use is associated with the structural position of an adolescent in the network.…”