Ed towards the course of action of participantdriven recruitment (Halpern; 2005; Miller Rosenstein, 2002; Semaan
Ed for the approach of participantdriven recruitment (Halpern; 2005; Miller Rosenstein, 2002; Semaan et al, 2009).Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript MethodsData analyzed for this paper were drawn from a mixedmethod RDS study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (20204) that systematically examined peer recruitment dynamics and the network structure of a sample of IDUs to test the validity of RDS statistical inference models’ underlying assumption about peer recruitment and social networks. A total of 526 IDUs in Hartford, CT were recruited by way of peer referral utilizing standard RDS style and procedures (Heckathorn, 997, 2002, 2007; Heckathorn, et alInt J Drug Policy. Author manuscript; available in PMC 206 September 0.Mosher et al.Page2002; Salganik Heckathorn, 2004). Eligible participants had been eight years and above, residents of Hartford, and had injected illicit drugs inside the final 30 days. Participants have been administered a baseline survey and a 2month followup survey that integrated participants’ demographics, danger behaviors, social network composition, and peer recruitment intention, practice and benefits. Applying a sequential mixed solutions style (Tashakkori Teddlie, 998, 2003), survey demographics have been used to purposively choose a nested sample (Onwuegbuzie Collins, 2007; Onwuegbuzie Leech, 2007) of participants for ITSA-1 site qualitative indepth interviews. We applied a maximum variation sampling program (Onwuegbuzie Collins, 2007; Sankoff, 97) to maximize the selection of perspectives and experiences with the recruitment procedure and to acquire representativeness via intracultural diversity. The nested sample was selected from the 2month followup survey sample (eight.2 of baseline sample) to represent the composition with the bigger sample in ethnicityrace, homelessness, in addition to a balanced proportion of productive recruiters (i.e who successfully referred or much more participants) and nonproductive recruiters. Females had been oversampled to be able to capture patterns inside and across gender. This sampling strategy was executed at 3 points all through the study: in the first two months on the 2month survey (n20), midway through recruitment from the full sample (for the duration of months 90 of sample recruitment; n20) and at the end of the study in the last 00 participants inside the RDS survey sample (n20). The intent was to capture peer recruitment patterns at later stages inside the study as it became extra difficult to PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24357672 recruit network members who had not yet participated. Comparison of demographic characteristics amongst the interview sample and those people who did not take part in the interview and only took the survey revealed no considerable variations in between the two subsamples (Table ), except on gender plus the typical quantity of recruits who returned coupons. We interviewed a larger percentage of women and productive recruiters as in comparison to the bigger nointerview survey sample. Even so, we usually do not believe that these differences have substantial effect around the generalizability of these findings, because the goal of this qualitative paper is not to assess the scope of every single sort of peer recruitment approaches, but rather to create a deep understanding on the array of recruitment strategies in the context of distinct participants’ lives and contexts. Study Procedures Inside the formative phase from the study, a team of ethnographers performed 3 months of outreach and ethnographic field observations to understand the present loca.