The complex relationships between networks of people and health outcomes have been of increasing interest in the health literature (1-4) but have received little attention in oral research. of such social environments – for an individual or entire communities (8). Researchers have often focused on individuals’ personal networks as these are most likely to influence behavior whether by helping them to interpret health problems (9) by influencing the perception of social norms (10) by attempts to control or regulate behavior (11) or by a combination of types of social influence (12 13 At the same time the structure of personal networks varies across many social characteristics including socioeconomic status (SES) (14-16); to the point that it has been argued that the relationship between SES and health may be a function of the structure and quality of social networks (17). E.g. SES and its association with health profiles in certain immigrant populations may be predicated on how migration can dramatically alter a person’s social networks (18) or modulate risk-taking behavior (19). For the present overview we will focus first on types of data that relate to social networks then discuss how SNA studies can be designed to collect such data the types of analysis that can be applied and examples of oral health research questions that can be answered using SNA. Social Afegostat Network Analysis and Study Design There are three types of network data from social and behavioral sciences that can usefully inform studies of oral health outcomes. The first type includes what we term “network-inspired” data which are studies that consider relationships between individuals but do not SAPKK3 gather specific data about relationships. Studies may collect indirect measures of social relationships such as what Afegostat is often seen in social capital research (20). Questions that gather this sort of information should be broadly familiar to anyone involved in social survey research. What kind of community organizations do you belong to? Do you attend church? Do you have close relationships with neighbors? A prominent example of this type of work is the Bowling Alone study (21) which Afegostat looked at American social life through the lens of declining civic participation. A second more specialized form of network study are studies. These are approaches that use information about (typically the person being interviewed or having data collected about them) and their relationships with other Afegostat non-interviewed people that the names the studies move beyond the proxies for network relationships used by network-inspired research; egocentric studies delve into specifics using a “generator” tactic to elicit information about alters (e.g. Who do you seek advice from when you have dental pain?). This type of approach has been used extensively (2 4 22 and recently in the prominent General Social Survey (25). studies are characterized by actual information about real relationships but do not necessarily involve any additional contact with those measures (which we will discuss below) from the perspective of the approach are that it can accommodate a random sample design; both the collection and the analysis are accessible to researchers conducting social science research without massive additional preparation and they have direct comparisons in many fields. The key aspect of these data is that they can be primarily used to answer questions about individuals and the association that their relationships might have on them as individuals. They cannot be used however to answer questions about the broader social structure of a community or questions about groups of people. A third type and the most complicated form of SNA from both data collection and analysis standpoints are studies. These are sometimes referred to as research on or networks. They focus on a complete population of interest not a sample. In a traditional survey context it would mean asking each population member about each other population member (with a roster or with a “free recall” version allowing members to name others). This type of study involves taking an entire community and either asking about Afegostat or observing relationships between all individual members. The boundary of a community is a definition of which actors belong to it (and which do not): Afegostat e.g. a.