A personal network analysis of health-advice seeking and dietary influence in a rural community

Health advice circulates through everyday relationships. The sources of informal health authority are less clear: the adviser's knowledge and conduct, or their network position. We examine personal network data from 89 adults in a rural community (1,625 respondent-contact relationships). We distinguish contacts consulted for health advice from contacts who tried to change the respondent's eating, model both relations with multilevel and penalised regressions, and test their differences. Both relations are embedded in frequent, close, and commensal ties and point to contacts more educated than

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