Connecting the invisible dots: Reaching lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents and young adults at risk for suicide through online social networks

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.05.029Get rights and content

Abstract

Young lesbian, gay, and bisexual (young LGB) individuals report higher rates of suicide ideation and attempts from their late teens through early twenties. Their high rate of Internet use suggests that online social networks offer a novel opportunity to reach them. This study explores online social networks as a venue for prevention research targeting young LGB. An automated data collection program was used to map the social connections between LGB self-identified individuals between 16 and 24 years old participating in an online social network. We then completed a descriptive analysis of the structural characteristics known to affect diffusion within such networks. Finally, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations of peer-driven diffusion of a hypothetical preventive intervention within the observed network under varying starting conditions. We mapped a network of 100,014 young LGB. The mean age was 20.4 years. The mean nodal degree was 137.5, representing an exponential degree distribution ranging from 1 through 4309. Monte Carlo simulations revealed that a peer-driven preventive intervention ultimately reached final sample sizes of up to 18,409 individuals. The network's structure is consistent with other social networks in terms of the underlying degree distribution. Such networks are typically formed dynamically through a process of preferential attachment. This implies that some individuals could be more important to target to facilitate the diffusion of interventions. However, in terms of determining the success of an intervention targeting this population, our simulation results suggest that varying the number of peers that can be recruited is more important than increasing the number of randomly-selected starting individuals. This has implications for intervention design. Given the potential to access this previously isolated population, this novel approach represents a promising new frontier in suicide prevention and other research areas.

Section snippets

Background

Compared to their peers, lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents and young adults (Young LGB) report higher rates of suicide ideation and attempts (Silenzio, Pena, Duberstein, Cerel, & Knox, 2007), and have been difficult to reach through conventional means (Participants in the Scientific Workshop to Measure the Health Concerns of Lesbian, 2002). In part due to the evolving role new technologies play in normative social development (Maczewski, 2002), Young LGB report high rates of Internet use (

Methods

This study was approved by the Research Subjects Review Board (RSRB) of the University of Rochester Medical Center as exempt human subjects research (RSRB Protocol #15000). Due to the use of only publicly available information, access to which is under direct control of potential subjects, and the minimal risks posed by this research, informed consent was waived by the RSRB. In the first stage of the study, only observational data regarding information subjects opted to make publicly available

Nodal-level analysis

Starting from the seed node, we mapped interrelationships between a total of 100,014 LGB self-identified individuals. After reaching the predetermined point of 100,000 individuals, the rate of new additions (data not shown) was constant, implying that the final population size could not be determined and data collection was terminated as planned. The size of the network at 1 degree was 94. At two degrees, the network consisted of 16,033 individuals (94 1st and 15,939 2nd degree nodes). After

Discussion

To our knowledge, this is the first social network analysis of a group with both high rates of Internet use and at high-risk for suicide ideation and attempts. It is also among the first to demonstrate the potential of online social networks as a prevention platform. This may be particularly relevant to future research and interventions targeting LGB youth, who have been historically quite difficult to reach.

Representing a much larger scale network with higher numbers of personal social

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    We would like to thank Douglas S. Portman for the development and programming of the data collection software. The University of Rochester provided institutional support and funding for this project. Additional funding was provided through NIMH Grant Number T32-MH020061 (Yeates Conwell, PI).

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