Analytic Advances in Social Networks and Health in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The study of social networks is increasingly central to health research for medical sociologists and scholars in other fields. Here, we review the innovations in theory, substance, data collection, and methodology that have propelled the study of social networks and health from a niche subfield to the center of larger sociological and scientific debates. In particular, we contextualize the broader history of network analysis and its connections to health research, concentrating on work beginning in the late 1990s, much of it in this journal. Using bibliometric and network visualization approaches, we examine the subfield’s evolution over this period in terms of topics, trends, key debates, and core insights. We conclude by reflecting on persistent challenges and areas of innovation shaping the study of social networks and health and its intersection with medical sociology in the coming years.