Supportive Social Networks and Outcomes (024)

Social support networks have been an invaluable tool to combat addiction and other health interventions. The concept of social support networks as a powerful force in the health of substance users is well documented. Effective substance use disorder (SUD) and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment approaches have been effectively combined with the inclusion of naturally-occurring support persons. The concept of organic social support has been under-utilized for retaining community members in SUD treatment programs.

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Re-Entry: Social Networks and Opioid Use (023)

Diverse communities enter the justice system, exit and re-enter to create a complex circulation driven by a number of social and structural factors. Often ignored are important social interactions that drive opioid use disorder (OUD) or methamphetamine use. Social learning and differential association theories hold that risky behaviors, including rationalizations for them, diffuse through social networks of close ties. Furthermore, network members influence behavior by virtue of the behavioral example they provide, the normative pressures they exert, and perceptions of these influences. If we understand how OUD/meth or recovery/renewed use moves through networks and their local geographic contexts, we will be able to develop new interventions, and determine previously unobserved mechanisms as to why interventions may fail or have success.

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