Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 22, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 21, 2024
Further exploring the public health implications of the network scale-up method: Cross-sectional Survey Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The network scale-up method (NSUM) was recommended by the United Nations Programme on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and the World Health Organization to estimate the sizes of the populations at high risk of HIV infection in 2010; however, we found that the NSUM also revealed underlying population characteristics of female sex workers (FSWs) in addition to being used to estimate the size of the FSWs population.
Objective:
We aimed to conduct a further exploration of the public health implications of the NSUM by using NSUM to estimate population size, popularity rate, and information transmission rate among people who inject drugs (PWID).
Methods:
A stratified two-stage cluster survey of the general population and a respondent-driven sampling (RDS) survey of PWID were conducted in the urban district of Taiyuan, China in 2021.
Results:
The estimated size of the PWID population in Taiyuan was 1,244 (95% CI: 1,011-1,477), corresponding to 0.044% (95% CI: 0.036%-0.052%) of the adult population aged 15-64 years. The estimated popularity ratio of the PWID population was 0.535 (95% CI: 0.512-0.558), and the estimated information transmission rate was 0.879 (95% CI: 0.867-0.892).
Conclusions:
The NSUM revealed that the PWID population have smaller sized personal social networks while concealing their drug use, and these underlying population characteristics are extremely useful for planning appropriate service delivery approaches with the fewest barriers for the PWID population to access HIV prevention services.
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