Feasibility of using respondent-driven sampling to recruit participants in superdiverse neighbourhoods for a general health survey

Tailoring research recruitment strategies to survey harder-to-reach populations: A discussion paper

AIMS

A discussion of the challenges of recruiting participants from harder-to-reach populations for quantitative survey studies and potential avenues for tailored strategies to address these challenges.

DESIGN

Discussion paper.

DATA SOURCES

The search was conducted on August 2, 2021, in the CINAHL and PubMed databases, and in Google scholar. The initial search identified 5880 articles, and the final analysis included 44 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Articles were retained if they addressed methodological challenges or strategies for recruitment and concerned research with harder-to-reach populations.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING

This article draws on the literature regarding the challenges of recruiting research participants from harder-to-reach populations and known strategies for overcoming them. These strategies include, for example, establishing a trusting relationship between the researcher and the participant community and gaining in-depth knowledge of the target population. These challenges and strategies for recruiting participants from these populations are discussed specifically in the context of quantitative survey research.

CONCLUSION

Nurse researchers conducting quantitative survey studies with participants from harder-to-reach populations must tailor their recruitment strategies to the target population and, most importantly, be flexible and creative in their recruitment methods.

IMPACT

The article discusses the challenges of recruiting participants from harder-to-reach populations and strategies to overcome them in quantitative survey studies. Successful recruitment requires researchers to develop a thorough understanding of the harder-to-reach population, develop partnerships to locate and access potential participants, build trust with the community, tailor their language, minimize participation risk and resource constraints, recognize the cognitive and physical demands required, and be flexible and creative in developing recruitment strategies. This knowledge can enable the inclusion of more people from harder-to-reach populations in survey studies and provide evidence that can inform research and practice to provide healthcare tailored to their needs and ultimately help improve their health and well-being.

Results and Strategies for a Diversity-Oriented Public Health Monitoring in Germany

Germany is a country of immigration; 27% of the population are people with a migration background (PMB). As other countries, Germany faces difficulties in adequately including hard-to-survey populations like PMB into national public health monitoring. The IMIRA project was initiated to develop strategies to adequately include PMB into public health monitoring and to represent diversity in public health reporting. Here, we aim to synthesize the lessons learned for diversity-oriented public health monitoring and reporting in Germany. We also aim to derive recommendations for further research on migration and health. We conducted two feasibility studies (interview and examination surveys) to improve the inclusion of PMB. Study materials were developed in focus groups with PMB. A systematic review investigated the usability of the concept of acculturation. A scoping review was conducted on discrimination as a health determinant. Furthermore, core indicators were defined for public health reporting on PMB. The translated questionnaires were well accepted among the different migrant groups. Home visits increased the participation of hard-to-survey populations. In examination surveys, multilingual explanation videos and video-interpretation services were effective. Instead of using the concept of acculturation, we derived several dimensions to capture the effects of migration status on health, which were more differentiated. We also developed an instrument to measure subjectively perceived discrimination. For future public health reporting, a set of 25 core indicators was defined to report on the health of PMB. A diversity-oriented public health monitoring should include the following: (1) multilingual, diversity-sensitive materials, and tools; (2) different modes of administration; (3) diversity-sensitive concepts; (4) increase the participation of PMB; and (5) continuous public health reporting, including constant reflection and development of concepts and methods.

A review of reported network degree and recruitment characteristics in respondent driven sampling implications for applied researchers and methodologists

OBJECTIVE

Respondent driven sampling (RDS) is an important tool for measuring disease prevalence in populations with no sampling frame. We aim to describe key properties of these samples to guide those using this method and to inform methodological research.

METHODS

In 2019, authors who published respondent driven sampling studies were contacted with a request to share reported degree and network information. Of 59 author groups identified, 15 (25%) agreed to share data, representing 53 distinct study samples containing 36,547 participants across 12 countries and several target populations including migrants, sex workers and men who have sex with men. Distribution of reported network degree was described for each sample and characteristics of recruitment chains, and their relationship to coupons, were reported.

RESULTS

Reported network degree is severely skewed and is best represented by a log normal distribution. For participants connected to more than 15 other people, reported degree is imprecise and frequently rounded to the nearest five or ten. Our results indicate that many samples contain highly connected individuals, who may be connected to at least 1000 other people.

CONCLUSION

Because very large reported degrees are common; we caution against treating these reports as outliers. The imprecise and skewed distribution of the reported degree should be incorporated into future RDS methodological studies to better capture real-world performance. Previous results indicating poor performance of regression estimators using RDS weights may be widely generalizable. Fewer recruitment coupons may be associated with longer recruitment chains.