Nonparametric identification for respondent-driven sampling

DOI10.1016/J.SPL.2015.07.003MaRDI QIDQ900537zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Peter M. Aronow, Forrest W. Crawford

Publication date 22 December 2015

Published in Statistics \& Probability Letters (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.03574, http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc4552244

zbMATH Keywords

Horvitz-Thompson estimatornetwork degreerespondent-driven sampling

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of statistics to biology and medical sciences; meta analysis (62P10)

Abstract: Respondent-driven sampling is a survey method for hidden or hard-to-reach populations in which sampled individuals recruit others in the study population via their social links. The most popular estimator for for the population mean assumes that individual sampling probabilities are proportional to each subject's reported degree in a social network connecting members of the hidden population. However, it remains unclear under what circumstances these estimators are valid, and what assumptions are formally required to identify population quantities. In this short note we detail nonparametric identification results for the population mean when the sampling probability is assumed to be a function of network degree known to scale. Importantly, we establish general conditions for the consistency of the popular Volz-Heckathorn (VH) estimator. Our results imply that the conditions for consistency of the VH estimator are far less stringent than those suggested by recent work on diagnostics for RDS. In particular, our results do not require random sampling or the existence of a network connecting the population.

Recommendations

• Central limit theorems for network driven sampling
• The effect of differential recruitment, non-response and non-recruitment on estimators for respondent-driven sampling
• Improved inference for respondent-driven sampling data with application to HIV prevalence estimation
• Modeling and analyzing respondent-driven sampling as a counting process

Cites work

• Improved inference for respondent-driven sampling data with application to HIV prevalence estimation
• Modeling and analyzing respondent-driven sampling as a counting process

Cited in

(1)

• Central limit theorems for network driven sampling

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