ArticlePloS one2014
Online respondent-driven sampling for studying contact patterns relevant for the spread of close-contact pathogens: a pilot study in Thailand.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Social Contact Surveys to Inform Transmission Models of Close-contact Infections.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2019Pooled it
- Viability of Web-Based Respondent-Driven Sampling of Belgian Men Who Have Sex With Men: Process Evaluation.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Social contact patterns in South Korea: an analysis of a survey conducted in 2023-2024.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Comprehensive profiling of social mixing patterns in resource poor countries: A mixed methods research protocol.PloS one · 2024Article
- Design and implementation of a web-based, respondent-driven sampling solution.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2023Article
- Improving web-based respondent-driven sampling performance among men who have sex with men in the Netherlands.PLOS digital health · 2023Article
- Applications and Recruitment Performance of Web-Based Respondent-Driven Sampling: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Quantifying heterogeneous contact patterns in Japan: a social contact survey.Theoretical biology & medical modelling · 2019Article
- A performance assessment of web-based respondent driven sampling among workers with precarious employment in Sweden.PloS one · 2019Article
- The potential use of social media and other internet-related data and communications for child maltreatment surveillance and epidemiological research: Scoping review and recommendations.Child abuse & neglect · 2018Article
- Social networks in relation to self-reported symptomatic infections in individuals aged 40-75 - the Maastricht study.BMC infectious diseases · 2018Observational
- Development of prediction models for upper and lower respiratory and gastrointestinal tract infections using social network parameters in middle-aged and older persons -The Maastricht Study.Epidemiology and infection · 2018Observational
- Identification of Homophily and Preferential Recruitment in Respondent-Driven Sampling.American journal of epidemiology · 2018Article
- Article
- Social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- A Web 2.0 and Epidemiology Mash-Up: Using Respondent-Driven Sampling in Combination with Social Network Site Recruitment to Reach Young Transwomen.AIDS and behavior · 2016Article
- Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review.Internet interventions · 2016Review
- THE GRAPHICAL STRUCTURE OF RESPONDENT-DRIVEN SAMPLING.Sociological methodology · 2016Article
- Tracking social contact networks with online respondent-driven detection: who recruits whom?BMC infectious diseases · 2015Article
- Enhancing Syndromic Surveillance With Online Respondent-Driven Detection.American journal of public health · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 8 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInformation on social interactions is needed to understand the spread of airborne infections through a population. Previous studies mostly collected egocentric information of independent respondents with self-reported information about contacts. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a sampling technique allowing respondents to recruit contacts from their social network. We explored the feasibility of webRDS for studying contact patterns relevant for the spread of respiratory pathogens. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe developed a webRDS system for facilitating and tracking recruitment by Facebook and email. One-day diary surveys were conducted by applying webRDS among a convenience sample of Thai students. Students were asked to record numbers of contacts at different settings and self-reported influenza-like-illness symptoms, and to recruit four contacts whom they had met in the previous week. Contacts were asked to do the same to create a network tree of socially connected individuals. Correlations between linked individuals were analysed to investigate assortativity within networks.
resultsWe reached up to 6 waves of contacts of initial respondents, using only non-material incentives. Forty-four (23.0%) of the initially approached students recruited one or more contacts. In total 257 persons participated, of which 168 (65.4%) were recruited by others. Facebook was the most popular recruitment option (45.1%). Strong assortative mixing was seen by age, gender and education, indicating a tendency of respondents to connect to contacts with similar characteristics. Random mixing was seen by reported number of daily contacts.
conclusionsDespite methodological challenges (e.g. clustering among respondents and their contacts), applying RDS provides new insights in mixing patterns relevant for close-contact infections in real-world networks. Such information increases our knowledge of the transmission of respiratory infections within populations and can be used to improve existing modelling approaches. It is worthwhile to further develop and explore webRDS for the detection of clusters of respiratory symptoms in social networks.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.