Effectiveness of Respondent-Driven Sampling for Conducting Health Studies Among Undocumented Immigrants at a Time of Heightened Immigration Enforcement

This paper assessed the effectiveness of Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) in recruiting undocumented Latinx immigrants for a prevalence health study at a time of heightened immigration enforcement. RDS was used to collect and analyze data from clinical interviews with 254 undocumented Latinx immigrant adults, enabling inference to a population of 22,000. 45% of the sample reported having a chronic medical condition. The desired sample size was achieved and exceeded with three initial recruits and 10 waves of recruitment across 9 weeks. There was substantial cross-group mixing for recruitment in terms of sex and recency of immigration, which facilitated the emergence of diversity within recruitment chains. Primary factors that contributed to effective recruitment were location, flexibility, on-site childcare, and detailed explanation of the recruitment process. RDS is an effective recruitment method to study the health of undocumented Latinx immigrants, which is essential to informing intervention and policy.