Regression Methods for Respondent Driven Samples: An Application to Young Adults Using Prescription Opioids Non-medically in New York City

Speakers

Ashley Buchanan, DrPH, is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy

Gabrielle Lemire, MS, is a Research Associate and Data Analyst in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Rhode Island. She is a graduate of the Masters of Science in Statistics program at Montana State University where she worked on HIV research in the Mathematical Sciences department.

Summary

Often the populations who are at highest risk of negative health outcomes, such as HIV/AIDS, are the hardest to reach through traditional survey methodology. Recent innovations in survey methods, particularly the use of respondent-driven sampling (RDS), have allowed researchers to better understand marginalized populations. Although RDS leverages the underlying social network structure within these communities to recruit individuals into the study, these same network structures pose challenges to using traditional statistical methods to analyze these data. Our talk will provide an overview of what RDS is, why it is useful, and dive into the burgeoning literature on performing statistical analyses with RDS. In particular, we consider a regression model in the context of a recent respondent-driven sample of young adults using heroin and prescription opioids non-medically in NYC. We seek to better understand factors associated with young adults in NYC expressing interest in treatment for opioid use disorder but not currently in treatment. Understanding risk and protective factors related to such gaps is useful for public health decisions focused on increasing access to treatment for opioid use disorder.

Meeting details

Join Zoom Meeting here.

Meeting ID: 453 444 1666
Passcode: 1234