Pediatric Informatics: Computer Applications in Child Health (Health ...

34 Pediatric Research and Informatics 447
34.3.1.1 Analyzing Social Networks
Social network analysis (SNA) is based on theory of graphs or of how individuals
are connected to each other. It is useful for studying relationships within
groups of people as well as the spread through personal interaction of things as
diverse as influence, infectious diseases, ideas, and adoption of technology. It is
computationally-intensive, but analyses have increased with the availability of
cheaper and more powerful computers and advances in computer science. SNA
has been used to study pediatric phenomena such as the transmission of sexual
infections, 57 bullying, 58 eating disorders 59 and tobacco use in adolescents. 60
A key concept from the social network scientific community is that of “scalefree”
networks. Scale-free means that the distribution of the number of links (to
other nodes) that each node (e.g., a person, a website, a molecule) follows a power
law. This means that a few nodes in a network will have a large number of links to
other nodes, and hence are of central importance in the structure and operation of
that network. For public health interventions, individual who are highly connected
may be in a position to facilitate the dissemination of a new program to others. 61
Such individuals are often called “peer-opinion leaders.”
34.3.1.2 Creating Communities of Practice
Collaborative communication and interactions, where physical distances do not
pose barriers to participation, have been facilitated through the development and
use of the Internet. The ability for communication among any group of people
allows and empowers the development of virtual communities. In communities of
practice, participants who share common interests, such as patients and families,
researchers, and care providers may come together to solve common problems and
to share solutions (see Case Study).
34.4 Conclusion: The Future
As research processes becomes fully represented and managed by information
technology, new types of projects that were heretofore impossible or impractical
can be undertaken. With widespread interoperable electronic medical and personalized
health records, the NIH goal of speeding the translating of research into clinical
practice can be realized by:
Informing clinicians and patients (using decision support tools) about newly
available treatments and opportunities to participate in clinical trials
Incorporating practice into research and vice versa by IT-facilitated comparisons
of the effectiveness of similar therapies using de-identified data collected from
electronic records of ambulatory visits