Smartphone based Respondent Driven Sampling

The FPMS team have identified a method called Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) which is designed for surveying small or hard to reach populations. The RDS method comprises three specific elements: firstly, the researcher must consider RDS assumptions and whether they are likely to be met in a study under consideration; secondly, the data collection is conducted in a manner that resembles 'snowballing' but, crucially, information is collected allowing identification of who invited whom to the survey; and lastly a bespoke RDS algorithm that exploits this information to correct for biases that occur in 'snowballing' is used for data analysis