Finding needles in a haystack: a methodology for identifying and sampling community-based youth smoking cessation programs.
BACKGROUND
Surveys of community-based programs are difficult to conduct when there is virtually no information about the number or locations of the programs of interest. This article describes the methodology used by the Helping Young Smokers Quit (HYSQ) initiative to identify and profile community-based youth smoking cessation programs in the absence of a defined sample frame.


METHODS
We developed a two-stage sampling design, with counties as the first-stage probability sampling units. The second stage used snowball sampling to saturation, to identify individuals who administered youth smoking cessation programs across three economic sectors in each county. Multivariate analyses modeled the relationship between program screening, eligibility, and response rates and economic sector and stratification criteria. Cumulative logit models analyzed the relationship between the number of contacts in a county and the number of programs screened, eligible, or profiled in a county.


RESULTS
The snowball process yielded 9,983 unique and traceable contacts. Urban and high-income counties yielded significantly more screened program administrators; urban counties produced significantly more eligible programs, but there was no significant association between the county characteristics and program response rate. There is a positive relationship between the number of informants initially located and the number of programs screened, eligible, and profiled in a county.


CONCLUSIONS
Our strategy to identify youth tobacco cessation programs could be used to create a sample frame for other nonprofit organizations that are difficult to identify due to a lack of existing directories, lists, or other traditional sample frames.
Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60608, USA.
Sherry
S
Emery
Jungwha
J
Lee
Susan J
SJ
Curry
Tim
T
Johnson
Amy K
AK
Sporer
Robin
R
Mermelstein
Brian
B
Flay
Richard
R
Warnecke
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D002648:Child; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003625:Data Collection; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D017146:Models, Organizational; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011634:Public Health; D012106:Research; D012309:Risk-Taking; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D055815:Young Adult