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Effectiveness of Respondent-Driven Sampling for Conducting Health Studies Among Undocumented Immigrants at a Time of Heightened Immigration Enforcement

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Abstract

This paper assessed the effectiveness of Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) in recruiting undocumented Latinx immigrants for a prevalence health study at a time of heightened immigration enforcement. RDS was used to collect and analyze data from clinical interviews with 254 undocumented Latinx immigrant adults, enabling inference to a population of 22,000. 45% of the sample reported having a chronic medical condition. The desired sample size was achieved and exceeded with three initial recruits and 10 waves of recruitment across 9 weeks. There was substantial cross-group mixing for recruitment in terms of sex and recency of immigration, which facilitated the emergence of diversity within recruitment chains. Primary factors that contributed to effective recruitment were location, flexibility, on-site childcare, and detailed explanation of the recruitment process. RDS is an effective recruitment method to study the health of undocumented Latinx immigrants, which is essential to informing intervention and policy.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by a Grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (K01HL150247; PI: Garcini), the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program and the Programa de Investigación en Migración y Salud (PIMSA). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Funding

This study was funded by a Grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (K01HL150247; PI: Garcini), the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program and the Programa de Investigación en Migración y Salud (PIMSA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research to, Advance Community Health (ReACH), Department of Medicine, Long School of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Luz M. Garcini

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Thania Galvan

  3. Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Juan M. Peña

  4. Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Nellie Chen

  5. College of Graduate Studies, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Elizabeth Klonoff

Authors
  1. Luz M. Garcini
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  2. Thania Galvan
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  3. Juan M. Peña
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  4. Nellie Chen
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  5. Elizabeth Klonoff
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by LG, TG, and JP. The first draft of the manuscript was written by LG and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luz M. Garcini.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

Participants provided verbal consent prior to the interviews, and the study was approved by the San Diego State University/University of California San Diego Joint Institutional Review Board.

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Garcini, L.M., Galvan, T., Peña, J.M. et al. Effectiveness of Respondent-Driven Sampling for Conducting Health Studies Among Undocumented Immigrants at a Time of Heightened Immigration Enforcement. J Immigrant Minority Health 24, 102–110 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-020-01112-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-020-01112-4

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