Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 29, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 29, 2018 - Jul 23, 2018
Date Accepted: Oct 31, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Population Size Estimation of Venue-Based Female Sex Workers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: A Capture-Recapture Exercise
ABSTRACT
Background:
There is limited population size estimation of female sex workers (FSW) in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) – the largest city in Vietnam. Only one population size estimation among VFSW was conducted in 2012 in Ho Chi Minh City. Appropriate estimates of the sizes of key populations are critical for resource allocation to prevent HIV infection.
Objective:
To estimate the population size of the venue-based female sex workers (VFSW) from Dec 2016 to Jan 2017 in HCMC, Vietnam.
Methods:
A multistage capture-recapture study was conducted in HCMC. The capture procedures included selection of districts using stratified probability proportion to size, mapping to identify venues, and then distribution of a unique object (a small pink-makeup bag) to all eligible VFSW in all identified venues. The recapture exercise included equal probability random selection of a sample of venues from the initial mapping, and then approaching VFSW in those venues to determine the number and proportion of women who received a unique object. The proportion and associated confidence bounds, calculated using sampling weights and accounting for study design, were then divided by the number of objects distributed to calculate the number of VFSW in the selected districts. This was then multiplied by the inverse of the proportion of districts selected to calculate the number of VFSW in HCMC as a whole.
Results:
Six of 24 districts were selected for the study. Mapping identified 573 venues across which 2317 unique objects were distributed in the first capture. During the recapture round, 103 venues were selected and 645 VFSW were approached and interviewed. Of those, 570 VFSW reported receiving the unique object during the capture round. Total estimated VFSW in the six selected districts were 2,616 (95% CI: 2,445 – 3,014). Accounting for the fact that only 25% (6/24) of total districts were selected, gives an overall estimate of 10,465 (95% CI: 9,782-12,055) VFSW in HCMC.
Conclusions:
The capture-recapture exercise provided an estimated number of VFSW in HCMC. For planning HIV prevention and care service needs among VFSW, studies are needed to assess the number of sex workers who are not venue based including those who use social media platforms to sell services.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.