From Dr. Lee:
“Individuals prefer to be connected to those who are similar to themselves, generating a homogenous network environment. How does homogeneity shape our own health and our perception of the health status of others? In the first part of the talk, I use a novel harmonized data set on completed suicide in the U.S. from 2005 to 2017 to demonstrate that the unemployment effect on suicide was mitigated in a community where many others were also unemployed. In the second part of the talk, I use a nationwide daily ego-centric network survey data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic to show how homogeneity skews perceptions of the health status of others. Specifically, I find that Americans perceived their own racial and partisan group members to be less susceptible to COVID-19 infection than other groups. Together, these results suggest that macro-level sameness effects can shape individual-level risk factors for suicide, and an individual-level perception may affect macro-level transmission dynamics through the othering process.”
