Online Respondent-Driven Sampling for Studying Contact Patterns Relevant for the Spread of Close-Contact Pathogens: A Pilot Study in Thailand

Abstract

Despite 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.