High school students’ friendship network, physical activity and residential locations – a stochastic actor based model

Evidence shows that adolescents do not do enough physical activity (PA), which could contribute to childhood overweight and obesity. Studies have shown that both the built environment and social networks could influence adolescents’ PA, but more studies are needed to investigate their combined influence using longitudinal data. We used a stochastic actor-based model analyzing two waves of Add Health data to test if (1) home location has a significant influence on high school student’s friendships, and (2) the neighborhood built environment has a significant influence on high school student’s PA while controlling for friendship networks. The results indicate that students’ PA level emulated peers’ PA levels and students who lived closer together, increased the likelihood of forming friendships. However, the built environment variables that described adolescents’ residential neighborhoods did not show a significant influence on students’ PA dynamics. This study contributes to our understanding of the joint impacts of social networks and home location on adolescents’ friend networks and PA dynamics in urban settings.