Abstract
Successive sampling (SS)—population size estimation (PSE) is a technique used to estimate the sizes of hidden populations using data collected in respondent-driven sampling (RDS) surveys. We assess past estimations and use new data from an RDS survey to calculate a new PSE. In 2012, 852 adult women in South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, who self-identified as survivors of sexual violence, resulting in a pregnancy, since the start of the war (in 1996) were sampled using RDS. We used imputed visibility, enrollment order, and prior estimates for PSE using SS-PSE in RDS Analyst. Prior estimates varied between Congolese local experts and researchers. We calculated the PSE of women with a sexual violence-related pregnancy in South Kivu using researchers’ priors to be approximately 17,400. SS—PSE is an effective method for estimating the population sizes of hidden populations, useful for providing evidence for services and resource allocation. SS—PSE is beneficial because population sizes can be calculated after conducting the survey and do not rely on separate studies or additional data (as in network scale-up, multiplier, and capture-recapture methods).
Article PDF
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Johnson K, Scott J, Rughita B, Kisielewski M, Asher J, Ong R, et al. Association of sexual violence and human rights violations with physical and mental health in territories of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. JAMA 2010;304:553–62.
Peterman A, Palermo T, Bredenkamp C. Estimates and determinants of sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Am J Public Health 2011;10:1060–7.
van Ee E, Kleber RJ. Growing up under a shadow: key issues in research on and treatment of children born of rape. Child Abus Rev 2013;22:386–97.
Carpenter C, editor. Born of war: protecting children of sexual violence survivors in conflict zones. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press; 2007.
Scott J, Rouhani S, Greiner A, Albutt K, Kuwert P, Hacker MR, et al. Respondent-driven sampling to assess mental health outcomes, stigma and acceptance among women raising children born from sexual violence-related pregnancies in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. BMJ Open 2015;5:e007057.
Annuaires Données Sanitaires 2006. Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: Sécrétariat Général du Ministére de la Santé; 2008.
MacroPlan Programme Elargi de Vaccinatión (PEV). Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: Direction d’Etudes et Planificatión; 2009.
Daher M. World report on violence and health. J Med Liban 2002;51:59–63.
Malekinejad M, Johnston LG, Kendall C, Kerr LRFS, Rifkin MR, Rutherford GW. Using respondent-driven sampling methodology for HIV biological and behavioral surveillance in international settings: a systematic review. AIDS Behav 2008; 12(4 Suppl.):S105–30.
Montealegre JR, Johnston LG, Murrill C, Monterroso E. Respondent driven sampling for HIV biological and behavioral surveillance in Latin America and the Caribbean. AIDS Behav 2013;17:2313–40.
White RG, Hakim AJ, Salganik MJ, Spiller MW, Johnston LG, Kerr L, et al. Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology for respondent-driven sampling studies: ‘‘STROBE-RDS“ statement. J Clin Epidemiol 2015;68:1463–71.
Heckathorn DD. Respondent-driven sampling: a new approach to the study of hidden populations. Soc Probl 1997;44:174–99.
Heckathorn DD. Respondent-driven sampling II: deriving valid population estimates from chain-referral samples of hidden populations. Soc Probl 2002;49:11–34.
Gile KJ, Handcock MS. Respondent-driven sampling: an assessment of current methodology. Sociol Methodol 2010;40:285–327.
Gile KJ, Johnston LG, Salganik MJ. Diagnostics for respondent-driven sampling. J R Stat Soc Ser A Stat Soc 2015;178:241–69.
McLaughlin KR, Handcock MS, Johnston LG, Japuki X, Gexha-Bunjaku D, Deva E, et al. Inference for the visibility distribution for respondent-driven sampling. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association; 2015.
Handcock MS, Gile KJ, Mar CM. Estimating hidden population size using respondent-driven sampling data. Electron J Stat 2014;8:1491–521.
Johnston LG, McLaughlin KR, El Rhilani H, Latifi A, Toufik A, Bennani A, et al. Estimating the size of hidden populations using respondent-driven sampling data: case examples from Morocco. Epidemiology 2015;26:846–52.
Greiner AL, Albutt K, Rouhani SA, Scott J, Dombrowski K, VanRooyen MJ, et al. Respondent-driven sampling to assess outcomes of sexual violence: a methodological assessment. Am J Epidemiol 2014;180:536–44.
Handcock MS, Gile KJ, Mar CM. Estimating the size of populations at high risk for HIV using respondent-driven sampling data. Biometrics 2015;71:258–66.
Gile KJ. Improved inference for respondent-driven sampling data with application to HIV prevalence estimation. J Am Stat Assoc 2011;106:135–46.
Dans l’est du Congo, les viols comme armes de guerre. Le Monde Afrique. Le Monde; 2014. Available from: http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2013/07/16/dans-l-estdu-congo-les-viols-comme-armes-de-guerre_3448206_3212.html. [Accessed 5 Nov 2015].
Johnston LG, Prybylski D, Raymond HF, Mirzazadeh A, Manopaiboon C, McFarland W. Incorporating the service multiplier method in respondent-driven sampling surveys to estimate the size of hidden and hard-to-reach populations: case studies from around the world. Sex Transm Dis 2013;40:304–10.
UNAIDS. Guidelines on estimating the size of populations most at risk to HIV. Geneva, Switzerland; 2010. Available from: http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/2011/2011_Estimating_Populations. [Accessed 19 Sep 2016].
Paz-Bailey G, Jacobson JO, Guardado ME, Hernandez FM, Nieto AI, Estrada M, et al. How many men who have sex with men and female sex workers live in El Salvador? Using respondent-driven sampling and capture-recapture to estimate population sizes. Sex Transm Infect 2011;87:279–82.
Vadivoo S, Gupte MD, Adhikary R, Kohli A, Kangusamy B, Joshua V, et al. Appropriateness and execution challenges of three formal size estimation methods for high-risk populations in India. AIDS 2008; 22(Suppl. 5):S137–48.
Sabin K, Zhao J, Garcia Calleja JM, Sheng Y, Arias Garcia S, Reinisch A, et al. Availability and quality of size estimations of female sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender women in low- and middle-income countries. PLoS One 2016;11:e0155150.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Peer review under responsibility of Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia.
Rights and permissions
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://doi.org/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
About this article
Cite this article
Johnston, L.G., McLaughlin, K.R., Rouhani, S.A. et al. Measuring a hidden population: A novel technique to estimate the population size of women with sexual violence-related pregnancies in South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. J Epidemiol Glob Health 7, 45–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jegh.2016.08.003
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jegh.2016.08.003