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Yamanis TJ, Merli MG, Neely WW, et al. An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China. Sociol Methods Res. 2013;42(3)doi: 10.1177/0049124113494576.
Yamanis, T. J., Merli, M. G., Neely, W. W., Tian, F. F., Moody, J., Tu, X., & Gao, E. (2013). An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China. Sociological methods & research, 42(3), . https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124113494576
Yamanis, Thespina J, et al. "An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China." Sociological methods & research vol. 42,3 (2013). doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124113494576
Yamanis TJ, Merli MG, Neely WW, Tian FF, Moody J, Tu X, Gao E. An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China. Sociol Methods Res. 2013 Aug;42(3). doi: 10.1177/0049124113494576. PMID: 24288418; PMCID: PMC3840895.
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Sociol Methods Res. 2013 Aug;42(3). doi: 10.1177/0049124113494576.

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China.

Sociological methods & research

Thespina J Yamanis, M Giovanna Merli, William Whipple Neely, Felicia Feng Tian, James Moody, Xiaowen Tu, Ersheng Gao

Affiliations

  1. School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USA.

PMID: 24288418 PMCID: PMC3840895 DOI: 10.1177/0049124113494576

Abstract

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a method for recruiting "hidden" populations through a network-based, chain and peer referral process. RDS recruits hidden populations more effectively than other sampling methods and promises to generate unbiased estimates of their characteristics. RDS's faithful representation of hidden populations relies on the validity of core assumptions regarding the unobserved referral process. With empirical recruitment data from an RDS study of female sex workers (FSWs) in Shanghai, we assess the RDS assumption that participants recruit nonpreferentially from among their network alters. We also present a bootstrap method for constructing the confidence intervals around RDS estimates. This approach uniquely incorporates real-world features of the population under study (e.g., the sample's observed branching structure). We then extend this approach to approximate the distribution of RDS estimates under various peer recruitment scenarios consistent with the data as a means to quantify the impact of recruitment bias and of rejection bias on the RDS estimates. We find that the hierarchical social organization of FSWs leads to recruitment biases by constraining RDS recruitment across social classes and introducing bias in the RDS estimates.

Keywords: China; HIV; Respondent Driven Sampling; hidden populations; recruitment bias; sex workers

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