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Surveying Hard-to-Reach Groups Through Sampled Respondents in a Social Network

A Comparison of Two Survey Strategies

Statistics in Biosciences volume 4, pages 177–195 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

The sampling frame in most social science surveys misses members of certain groups, such as the homeless or individuals living with HIV. These groups are known as hard-to-reach groups. One strategy for learning about these groups, or subpopulations, involves reaching hard-to-reach group members through their social network. In this paper we compare the efficiency of two common methods for subpopulation size estimation using data from standard surveys. These designs are examples of mental link tracing designs. These designs begin with a randomly sampled set of network members (nodes) and then reach other nodes indirectly through questions asked to the sampled nodes. Mental link tracing designs cost significantly less than traditional link tracing designs, yet introduce additional sources of potential bias. We examine the influence of one such source of bias using simulation studies. We then demonstrate our findings using data from the General Social Survey collected in 2004 and 2006. Additionally, we provide survey design suggestions for future surveys incorporating such designs.

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Notes

  1. Slashdot is a technology news blog. Slashdot recently introduced a feature, known as Slashdot Zoo, which allows users to connect to one another as friends.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the SAMSI Complex Networks Program.

Tyler McCormick is partially supported by NIAID grant R01 HD54511. This work was partially completed while McCormick was supported by a Google PhD Fellowship in Statistics. The research of Tian Zheng is, in parts, supported by NSF grants DMS-0714669 and SES-1023176, NIH grant R01 GM070789, and a 2010 Google research award. Eric Kolaczyk is supported by ONR award N000140910654.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Box 354322, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Tyler H. McCormick

  2. Department of Statistics, Columbia University, 1255 Amsterdam Ave MC 4690, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Ran He & Tian Zheng

  3. Department of Statistics, Boston University, 111 Cummington Street, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Eric Kolaczyk

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  1. Tyler H. McCormick
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  2. Ran He
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  3. Eric Kolaczyk
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  4. Tian Zheng
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Correspondence to Tyler H. McCormick.

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McCormick, T.H., He, R., Kolaczyk, E. et al. Surveying Hard-to-Reach Groups Through Sampled Respondents in a Social Network. Stat Biosci 4, 177–195 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12561-012-9059-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12561-012-9059-4

Keywords

  • Aggregated relational data
  • Egocentric nominations
  • Hard-to-reach groups
  • Mental link tracing design
  • Sampling
  • Social network