title: Implementation of respondent-driven sampling among female sex workers in Brazil, 2009.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Informações em Saúde, Instituto de Comunicação e Informação, Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. giselind@fiocruz.br
authors.forename: Giseli Nogueira
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Damacena
authors.forename: Célia Landmann
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Szwarcwald
authors.forename: Aristides
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barbosa Júnior
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011477:Sex Work / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D035862:Vulnerable Populations