The Possibilities of Social Network Analysis in Addressing the Opioid Crisis: Merits, Methods, and Implications

Jodi Ford, Ph.D., RN, FAAN is a Professor, Director of the Stress Science Lab, and Assistant Director of the Martha S. Pitzer Center for Women, Children and Youth in the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She investigates the interplay between the social, spatial, and biological determinants of adolescent and young adult health, and their contribution to social inequities in health. She is currently a multiple principal investigator of an NIH R01 study examining patterns of adversity across childhood and adolescence that increase adolescents’ risk for shorter telomere length – a marker of cellular aging.  In addition, she is a co-investigator of the HOME study funded by NIDA under the NIH HEAL Initiative, which is testing a randomized Housing First intervention linked with opioid and related risk prevention services for the prevention of opioid use disorder among youth experiencing homelessness.

David Kennedy, Ph.D., M.A., is a Senior Social / Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation. He was trained as a medical anthropologist and holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida. He has conducted research on the intersection of culture, social networks, and health throughout his career. As a methodologist, Dr. Kennedy specializes in developing innovative research designs that integrate qualitative and quantitative methodologies and methods for collecting and analyzing personal network data. He has led the development of software for the collection of social network data and for use in mixed-methods studies of social networks and social network interventions, EgoWeb 2.0. He is also leading several projects that are developing innovative social network-based behavior change interventions that combine Motivational Interviewing and personal network visualizations. 

Rose Hardy, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a health services researcher and data scientist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She focuses on pediatric specialty care with an emphasis on the delivery in rural communities and how social determinants of health impact that care. Her social network analysis work has assessed how relationships impact social needs and network outcomes. She has constructed network data from large administrative databases to understand how care systems influence health outcomes. As a whole, her work seeks to ensure that all communities receive the quality care they deserve, provided by systems that address their specific needs and acknowledge their strengths and wishes.

Jerreed Ivanich, Ph.D., M.S., As a member of Alaska's Metlakatla Indian Community (Tsimshian), Jerreed is dedicated to health research for North American Indigenous (Alaska Native, American Indian, First Nations, and Native Hawaiian) populations. Dr. Ivanich is an Assistant Professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for American Indian Health. His work meets at the intersections of prevention science, social network analysis, and adolescent health to reduce substance use and suicide in tribal communities. Through community-based participatory research, Dr. Ivanich aims to take the knowledge and strengths of tribal communities and put them in dialogue with the broader research field to improve public health and advance scientific methods.