Social sensing: obesity, unhealthy eating and exercise in face-to-face networks

What is the role of face-to-face interactions in the diffusion of health-related behaviors- diet choices, exercise habits, and long-term weight changes? We use co-location and communication sensors in mass-market mobile phones to model the diffusion of health-related behaviors via face-to-face interactions amongst the residents of an undergraduate residence hall during the academic year of 2008-09. The dataset used in this analysis includes bluetooth proximity scans, 802.11 WLAN AP scans, calling and SMS networks and self-reported diet, exercise and weight-related information collected periodically over a nine month period. We find that the health behaviors of participants are correlated with the behaviors of peers that they are exposed to over long durations. Such exposure can be estimated using automatically captured social interactions between individuals. To better understand this adoption mechanism, we contrast the role of exposure to different sub-behaviors, i.e., exposure to pe...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: WH
• Authors: Anmol Madan, Sai T. Moturu, David Lazer, Alex Pentland
• Keywords: Face-to-face Interactions, Health Behaviors, Health-related Behaviors, Healthcare, WH 2010