Identifying network effects in health and health related behaviors

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal survey of Adolescent Health to investigate the role of network effects in health and health related behaviors. I adopt a model that links an individual's Bonacich centrality to Nash equilibrium outcomes within her social network, and estimate network effects on self reported general health, smoking, drinking and participating in dangerous behaviors in high school students. I find that both network structure, as defined by an individual's centrality in her social network, and more direct peer influence, as defined by the mean outcome of her immediate neighbors, have a positive effect on health, and that this effect varies by gender. This positive effect is present directly through improving the probability that an individual reports being in good health, and indirectly through discouraging health adverse behavior. These results argue in favor of considering network structure when investigating social network effects.