Recovery homes: A social network analysis of Oxford Houses for Native Americans

Abstract

Social network data were collected among residents of an Oxford House (OH) recovery home, which was located on Suquamish Tribal territory. Data were collected on the social connections of eight male residents (including four Native Americans and four non–Native Americans) using a social network instrument. A number of social network relationship types were examined, including friendship, trust, and mentorship. Social network data assessed included diameter, reciprocity, the average path length, cohesion, density, transitivity, and centrality. Findings indicated that the OH provided residents a well-integrated network with multiple sources of friendship, trust, and mentors. This is of importance as recovery from substance abuse is facilitated when recovering individuals are provided stable and well-functioning networks that foster social support, access to resources, and mentorship.

Keywords:

• Recovery homes
• Native Americans
• Oxford House

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The authors appreciate the financial support from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grant number AA022763).

Notes

1 Our measure could be called betweenness centrality, but for abbreviation we will call it centrality. There are several measures of centrality, which tend to characterize individual nodes, whereas centralization is usually used to refer to a characterization of the whole network. Our measure is one of centralization.