TY - JOUR
T1 - Employing Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) to recruit people who inject drugs (PWID) and other hard-to-reach populations during COVID-19
T2 - Lessons learned
AU - Abadie, Roberto
AU - Habecker, Patrick
AU - Carrasco, Kimberly Gocchi
AU - Chiou, Kathy S.
AU - Fernando, Samodha
AU - Bennett, Sydney J.
AU - Valentin-Acevedo, Aníbal
AU - Dombrowski, Kirk
AU - West, John T.
AU - Wood, Charles
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Abadie, Habecker, Carrasco, Chiou, Fernando, Bennett, Valentin-Acevedo, Dombrowski, West and Wood.
PY - 2022/10/3
Y1 - 2022/10/3
N2 - Background: Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) is an effective sampling strategy to recruit hard-to-reach populations but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of this strategy in the collection of data involving human subjects, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable populations, is not known. Based on an ongoing study using RDS to recruit and study the interactions between HIV infection, injection drug use, and the microbiome in Puerto Rico, this paper explores the effectiveness of RDS during the pandemic and provided potential strategies that could improve recruitment and data collection. Results: RDS was employed to evaluate its effectiveness in recruiting a group of people who inject drugs (PWID) and controls (N = 127) into a study in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were distributed among three subsets: 15 were HIV+ and PWID, 58 were HIV- PWID, and 54 were HIV+ and not PWID. Findings: Results show that recruitment through peer networks using RDS was possible across all sub-groups. Yet, while those in the HIV+ PWID sub-group managed to recruit from other-sub groups of HIV- PWID and HIV+, this occurred at a lower frequency. Conclusion: Despite the barriers introduced by COVID-19, it is clear that even in this environment, RDS continues to play a powerful role in recruiting hard-to-reach populations. Yet, more attention should be paid at how future pandemics, natural disasters, and other big events might affect RDS recruitment of vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.
AB - Background: Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) is an effective sampling strategy to recruit hard-to-reach populations but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of this strategy in the collection of data involving human subjects, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable populations, is not known. Based on an ongoing study using RDS to recruit and study the interactions between HIV infection, injection drug use, and the microbiome in Puerto Rico, this paper explores the effectiveness of RDS during the pandemic and provided potential strategies that could improve recruitment and data collection. Results: RDS was employed to evaluate its effectiveness in recruiting a group of people who inject drugs (PWID) and controls (N = 127) into a study in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were distributed among three subsets: 15 were HIV+ and PWID, 58 were HIV- PWID, and 54 were HIV+ and not PWID. Findings: Results show that recruitment through peer networks using RDS was possible across all sub-groups. Yet, while those in the HIV+ PWID sub-group managed to recruit from other-sub groups of HIV- PWID and HIV+, this occurred at a lower frequency. Conclusion: Despite the barriers introduced by COVID-19, it is clear that even in this environment, RDS continues to play a powerful role in recruiting hard-to-reach populations. Yet, more attention should be paid at how future pandemics, natural disasters, and other big events might affect RDS recruitment of vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.
KW - COVID-19
KW - HIV
KW - Puerto Rico
KW - Respondent Driven Sampling
KW - people who inject drugs (PWID)
KW - recruitment
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U2 - 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.990055
DO - 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.990055
M3 - Article
C2 - 36262631
AN - SCOPUS:85139967010
SN - 1664-0640
VL - 13
JO - Frontiers in Psychiatry
JF - Frontiers in Psychiatry
M1 - 990055
ER -