Implementation of respondent-driven sampling among female sex workers in Brazil, 2009

Female sex workers are known in Brazil and elsewhere in the world as one of the most-at-risk populations for risk of HIV infection, due to their social vulnerability and factors related to their work. However, the use of conventional sampling strategies in studies on most-at-risk subgroups for HIV is generally problematic, since such subgroups are small in size and are associated with stigmatized behaviors and/or illegal activities. In 1997, a probabilistic sampling technique was proposed for hard-to-reach populations, called Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS). The method is considered a variant of chain sampling and allows the statistical estimation of target variables. This article describes some assumptions of RDS and all the implementation stages in a study of 2,523 female sex workers in 10 Brazilian cities. RDS proved appropriate for recruiting sex workers, allowing the selection of a probabilistic sample and the collection of previously missing information on this group in Brazil.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Damacena,Giseli Nogueira, Szwarcwald,Célia Landmann, Barbosa Júnior,Aristides
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz 2011
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-311X2011001300006
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