Duke 2008 | ASHE | Equity and Efficiency in Health and Healthcare

This session examines peer effects in health-related behaviors among adolescents. Although peer effects may be important determinants of adolescent outcomes and a useful policy target, identifying causal relationships in this context are especially difficult for two reasons. First, self- and peer-choices of social groups depend upon a variety of characteristics that are usually unobservable to social scientists but associated with common behaviors and outcomes. Second, unobservable aspects of the shared environments (e.g., neighborhoods, school quality, economic fluctuations) are likely to produce similarities in behavior. This session features three papers with novel approaches to account for these challenges. The variety in empirical approaches, as well as the variety in outcomes examined (smoking, alcohol use, marijuana use, sex, and obesity), should lead to interesting discussions and insights in this challenging and important area of research.