Discovering Structural Roles within Drug-Injection Networks

Brandon Chow, Miranda Melson, Samuel Rosenblatt, Amanda Nguyen

Introduction Methodology
“Roles” have both social and individual-level dimensions: on the one hand,
individuals who occupy the same role tend to have common characteristics Remove KRs from Network Identify Regular Equivalence Classes
(e.g., professors have high education level); on the other hand, role holders The network is a union of KRs’ ego-networks, making
tend to have similar kinds of relationships (e.g., professors each have Observed Matrix Permuted Matrix Image Matrix Reduced Network
KRs artificial network centers.
students they teach). 12345 . . . . . 45 46 A B C D A B C D
1
2
3 A A REG – – –
This research project investigates the interplay between social or 4
5

structural determinants of roles and the characteristics of role holders B B – REG – –

in a drug injection network across four towns in Puerto Rico. The network
consists of 14 “Key Respondent” (KR) drug users and their complete ego- .
.
. C C – REG – –
networks, totaling to 60 users, each of whom were interviewed for their .
.
demographic information, drug use and sharing habits, sexual activity, etc.
KRs were also followed for 1-2 hours per day, for 2-3 weeks; daily
interactions were recorded in field notes[1]. In this network, a directed edge D D – – – REG
from user X to Y indicates that X reported injecting with Y.
45
46
While previous work has focused on “institutionalized” roles (hit doctors,
Total Error = 22
proxy buyers, etc.) [2, 3] common to many drug using communities, there has
been zero work on the role structures that go unnamed, or exist
informally, within drug injection networks. To address this literature gap,
we identify informal roles using a two-step process:
Impute KRs’ Equivalence Classes Predict Classes via Node Attributes
1. Determine groups, or equivalence classes, of drugs users who
have similar ‘patterns’ of ties. Every class represents a role. 100 Bagged Decision Trees were trained; the top
5 most frequent paths to each class were used as 100 10-fold Cross Validations estimated the accuracy
2. Characterize each class by the demographics of the drug users demographic summaries of each class. rate of Bagged Decision Trees
they contain and their ties to other classes.
A B C D
In this way, informal roles are discovered and characterized by both structural
and node level properties. Finally, we explore the degree to which role- A
A B C D
holding may be a consequence of purely node attributes (as opposed to

# of Cross Validations
solely network structure) by evaluating the extent to which demographic B
information is predictive of the roles drug users occupy.

This research is valuable for several reasons. First, drug users who occupy C
similar roles are known to frequently share advice, especially about safe
practices[2]. Therefore, educative programs which are aware of drug users
fulfilling informal network roles should disseminate safety information among
users who occupy diverse roles– not users who occupy just a few. Second,
since the field’s onset, SNA has focused extensively on structural
determinants of actors’ positions in the network[4]. This project represents a
healthy challenge to that trend by exploring the extent to which the very roles D
discovered via social ties can also be predicted via purely demographic data. Avg. % Correct

Summary Findings References

Individual Level
Roles
Three informal roles were discovered: Role A, in which users are isolated (Field Notes / Bagged Decision Trees)
from the remaining network, and Roles B and C, in which role C holders are •  Has access to medical care
financially dependent on role B holders for drugs. Qualitatively, role A holders
•  Comfortable using needles already used by 2-3 people
have healthy relationships and role B and C holders tend to have unhealthy
A •  Healthy relationships: happy marriages, caring for children,
or broken relationships. The fourth role, D, had mixed results and is not
being a hit doctor for others
shown.
In addition, drug users’ demographics (age, marital status, daily money spent
•  Average age: 47
on drugs, and the number of times a needle had already been used) were
•  Average spent on drugs daily: $70
found to be moderate predictors of role-holding (bagged decision trees have
B •  On average, uses needles already used by: 3.6 people
≈ 60% accuracy rate, and ≈ 72% of KR’s imputed ties were placed in correct
•  Some unhealthy relationships– but not as commonplace as
blocks). These results are conservative underestimates, as our classifiers did Group C
not utilize qualitative data on healthy relationships. Given these findings,
future studies may benefit from conducting a casual investigation of the
•  Average age: 38
relationship between role-holding, and structural and node level properties.
•  Average spent on drugs daily: $40
•  On average, uses needles already used by: 1.3 person
We would like to thank Kirk Dombrowski and Robin Gautheir for their endless C -  Very little self-nomination
•  Unhealthy relationships: lying to spouse / family about
mentorship and guidance with this research, and Roberto Abadie, whose field
continued drug usage, forbidden from visiting children
efforts made the project possible.
because of own drug habits, stealing money from family.
Structural Level
(Block Model)
•  Small, densely connected group
•  Relatively isolated from rest of
network
•  Core (to C)
-  Heavy self-nomination
-  Very little nomination of Group C
•  Never nominates Group A or D
•  Periphery (to B)
-  Heavily nominates Group B
•  Never nominates Group A or D
[1] National Institute on Drug Abuse of the
Interpretation
National Institutes of Health, [Grant Number
Healthy relationships are related to individuals engaging in self- R01DA037117]
care— in this case, by being selective with injection partners, who [2] Friedman, Samuel R., R. Terry Furst,
themselves are also selective. The result is the group’s near Benny Jose, Richard Curtis, Alan Neaigus,
isolation from the rest of the network, and may also make Don C. Des Jarlais, Marjorie F. Goldstein,
and Gilbert Ildefons. "Drug Scene Roles and
individuals feel safer injecting with needles others in the group
HIV Risk." Addiction 93.9 (1998): 1403-416.
have already used.
Web.
While Group B and Group C co-inject, B spends significantly
more daily money on drugs, suggesting C depends on B as a [3] Friedman, Samuel R., Sung-Yeon Kang,
drug source. Most likely, this occurs during ‘caballo’, a practice Sherry Deren, Rafaela Robles, Hector M.
Colón, Jonny Andia, Denise Oliver-Velez,
where users pool money together to make purchasing drugs
and Ann Finlinson. "Drug-Scene Roles and
more affordable. The fact that C does not contribute an equal
HIV Risk Among Puerto Rican Injection Drug
share also accounts for the observed core-periphery structure: B Users in East Harlem, New York and
may not consider its relationship with C as beneficial, and thus Bayamón, Puerto Rico." Journal of
did not nominate C as part of its ‘injection network’. Psychoactive Drugs 34.4 (2002): 363-69.
Web.
Even though B has substantial control over C’s drug access, C [4] Emirbayer, M., & Goodwin, J. (1994).
tends to use needles that are much cleaner that B. Since C only Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem
tends to inject with B, this suggests that C tends to use needles of Agency. American Journal of Sociology,
99(6), 1411-1454. doi:10.1086/230450
before B. This result is counterintuitive, and remains to be
explained.