Adams Jimi, Moody James, Muth Stephen Q, Morris Martina
School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, PO Box 873701, Tempe AZ 85287-3701.
Field methods. 2012 May 1;24(2):175-193. doi: 10.1177/1525822X11433997.
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.
难以接触到的人群通常通过各种基于联系追踪的设计进行抽样，这些设计依靠人际网络来识别该人群的成员。本文考察了科罗拉多斯普林斯“90项目”艾滋病毒风险网络研究中一种此类多联系追踪设计的实际回报。交叉联系对象是那些因被样本中至少另外两名受访者指认为伴侣而被纳入研究的受访者。我们使用双变量和多变量调整统计方法，比较交叉联系对象与其他受访者在社会人口学特征和网络属性方面的情况。我们通过创建一组删除他们所提供信息的反事实网络，来评估他们对观察到的网络结构的贡献。结果表明，联系追踪技术能够识别出那些否则就会被遗漏的人群，而且如果没有他们，就会因扭曲网络内与流行病学相关的指标而低估潜在的艾滋病毒风险。
