This paper identifies an important paradigm shift in social research on HIV transmission, drug abuse, and risk reduction research. The article describes the key research trends and the institutional support for social network analysis in the HIV and drug risk field for the past decade. Key hypotheses and recommended areas for future research are identified.

We use nine waves of BHPS data to examine interactions between spouses in terms of a behaviour with important health repercussions: cigarette smoking. Partners ’ behaviours may be correlated due to matching in the marriage market, bargaining within marriage, or information revealed by others ’ behaviour. Simple probit and bivariate probits reveal a positive correlation between partners ’ smoking participation, which is consistent with both matching and bargaining. Controlling for fixed effects allows us to distinguish between opposing interpretations. In our preferred specification, a bivariate probit with random effects, partners ’ behaviours are statistically independent: all of the correlation in smoking status works through the correlation in individual fixed effects. As such, we believe that the correlation in the raw smoking data reflects matching on the marriage market, rather than bargaining within the couple.

explores the social network processes involved in adolescent substance use. Over the past three decades, researchers have focused on, with increasing clarity, the specific dynamics of peer selection and peer influence in their attempts to understand how adolescents first use a substance, what compels them to continue use, and why some of them quit. However, the exact nature of interplay between those two key social processes continues to be elusive, due to the lack of both robust longitudinal network data and sophisticated network methodologies capable of addressing such data; it is only in recent years that advances in the field have improved these deficiencies. The research presented here adopts an alternative approach using a large cross-sectional data set that is not without its limitations, but still manages to produce specific parameters for selection and influence some of which are surprisingly similar to those reported in some recent work on this topic. Inferences to describe adolescent networks are drawn from partially-formed egonetwork data contained in the 1998 and 1999 survey years of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health; a modest level of precision in these analyses is achievable

This monograph is based on the papers from a technical review on “Social Networks, Drug Abuse, and HIV Transmission ” held on August 19-20, 1993. The review meeting was sponsored by the National

We use nine waves of BHPS data to examine interactions between spouses in terms of a behaviour with important health repercussions: cigarette smoking. Partners ’ behaviours may be correlated due to matching in the marriage market, bargaining within marriage, or information revealed by others ’ behaviour. Simple probit and bivariate probits reveal a positive correlation between partners ’ smoking participation, which is consistent with both matching and bargaining. Controlling for fixed effects allows us to distinguish between opposing interpretations. In our preferred specification, a bivariate probit with random effects, partners ’ behaviours are statistically independent: all of the correlation in smoking status works through the correlation in individual fixed effects. As such, we believe that the correlation in the raw smoking data reflects matching on the marriage market, rather than bargaining within the couple.

A new service delivery system for the treatment of opioid dependence, called motivational stepped care, matches the intensity of counseling services to each patient’s clinical progress. Adherence to a counseling schedule is reinforced through the linking of counseling attendance with the patient’s methadone dispensing schedule and, ultimately, his or her ability to continue receiving treatment services. The article describes the scientific evidence supporting the major elements of the model, the model in action, and evaluations that have been conducted to date. The effectiveness of methadone treatment in reducing use of heroin and other opioids has been confirmed in studies spanning more than three decades (Hubbard et al., 1989; Simpson and Sells, 1990) but has declined in recent years. One factor in this development is greater scope and severity of problems among current patients than among their counterparts in the mid-1960s. The changing clinical profile includes high rates of use of cocaine and other