The Case For Tracing Covid-19 Social Networks, Not Just Contacts

Dr. Joshua Liao explains how to harness the power of social networks to target Covid-19 misinformation alongside other public health measures.

Contact tracing is crucial for combating Covid-19. It involves identifying and engaging all the people who have come into contact with infected individuals. The goal of identifying these links is straightforward: to curb viral transmission by notifying people of their potential exposure and referring them to testing or self-quarantine when appropriate. 

We need reliable data and public health data measures such as contact tracing. However, they are insufficient by themselves for containing Covid-19, in part due to the infodemic of misinformation about coronavirus biology and behaviors, such as masking and physical distancing. To fight misinformation and risky behaviors, leaders can implement a strategy that I call Covid-19 “social network tracing”—identifying individuals or groups who play central roles in dictating Covid-19 information and behaviors in a community.

The Importance of Social Networks

Data from behavioral science are clear: humans are social beings that can be influenced by  others, particularly in situations of uncertainty. When the appropriate choice is unclear, we tend to look to others for guidance and make decisions based on what they do. Public officials and business leaders can harness the power of social influence to help change Covid-related behaviors.

But we should incorporate additional insight from social network analysis, a field that characterizes social structures based on the things in a network and the relationships that connect them. This definition is broad by design: “things” can refer to a range of individuals, groups, or items, while “relationships” can define different interactions between them. Social networks have been used to study a wide range of topics, including close personal friendships, stock portfolio management, sexual relationships, health behaviors, and even connections in complex criminal networks.

Though specifics vary by topic, a social network perspective can offer several general insights about human behavior. Networks can highlight collective dynamics in behavior. For instance, in a study that mapped networks to study how smoking behavior spreads between individuals in a community, researchers found that whole groups of people tended to quit together in concert rather than at different times.

Networks can also highlight the most important individuals or groups in a community, as defined by having more connections to others or more heavily mediating connections between them. In turn, these individuals can have an outsized impact on how others in the network receive information or behave. In the smoking cessation study, individuals were more likely to stop smoking if they had a spouse, sibling, or friend that did, too.

Lessons for Our Response to Covid-19

First, public officials can build network maps for the purposes of Covid-19 social network tracing alongside efforts to strength public health systems to conduct contact tracing. One way to do this would be to apply social network analysis to Facebook and Twitter data, using Covid-related search, post, and tweet information to identify interpersonal connections, define communities, and describe the importance of individuals in each. This type of work has been done at a high-level among public figures using Twitter data, demonstrating the importance of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and organizations like the World Health Organization in disseminating Covid-19 information.

We need similar work at the state and local levels in order to trace the flow of information and behavior through our communities. To help build these networks, local business, community, and public leaders can work together to survey individuals and directly gather information about influential individuals and information sources.

Second, leaders can engage central people or groups within Covid-19 social networks to combat misinformation and risky behaviors. For instance, officials in New York City worked with violence interrupters—groups trained in gun violence prevention—to pass out masks and serve as “credible messengers” of information about social distancing. Based on circumstances, local business, trade, school, or civic groups that possess strong ties to and credibility with a community can serve similar roles.

Because there are no silver bullets in combating Covid-19, social network strategies must be paired with broad public health measures. But blanket interventions targeting the virus may fail if not paired with focused interventions targeting virus-related misinformation. Covid-19 social network tracing can be a promising tool on both fronts.

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