Quantifying the Benefits of Link-Tracing Designs for Partnership Network Studies
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Difficult-to-reach populations are frequently sampled through various link-tracing based designs, which rely on interpersonal networks to identify members of the population. This article examines the substantive returns to one such multiple-link tracing design in the Colorado Springs "Project 90" HIV risk networks study. Cross-links were respondents who were targeted for enrollment because of being named as partners by at least two other respondents in the sample. We compare cross-links to other respondents on sociodemographic characteristics and network properties using bivariate and multivariate adjusted statistics. We evaluate their contributions to observed network structure by creating a set of counterfactual networks deleting the information they provided. Results suggest that the link-tracing techniques led to identifying populations that would have otherwise been missed and that their absence would have underestimated potential HIV risk by distorting epidemiologically relevant measures within the network.
Source: Field Methods
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Arizona State University, University of Washington, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
OpenAlex ID: W2146462434