hiddenmeta

Installation

install.packages("DeclareDesign")

devtools::install_github("gerasy1987/hiddenmeta", build_vignettes = TRUE)

Overview

This package provides tools to implement and evaluate designs to measure the prevalence of hidden populations.

Researchers use a variety of techniques that vary on three dimensions: how and from whom data is gathered, which measures are taken, how analysis is done using these measure. Specific measures range from simple population sample with scaling by inverse sampling weights, to complex sampling designs using respondent driven sampling or time location sampling, coupled with network scale-up methods, or Bayesian analyses. Each method involves many specific design choices, and the relative performance of different methods likely varies over applications.

The tools provided here help researchers select designs, assess their quality, and implement their analyses. In addition the tools can allow researchers to pool findings from multiple methods in order to implement meta-analysis that lets researchers learn about the relative effectiveness of approaches.

Evaluating designs

We rely on DeclareDesign package for evaluating designs via simulation. The key idea of the simulation workflow is that we simulate the design as a set of steps. When concatenated the steps produce an instance of a design. When replicated these instances let us assess the overall performance of a design.

Fully specified designs include information on:

1. M: The background model—for instance, background beliefs about network structures.
2. I: The inquiries, i.e. what exactly is the quantity we want to estimate. The estimands should be readable from the background model.
3. D: What is the data strategy? For instance how will sampling be undertaken?
4. A: What is the answer strategy? How will estimation be done?

Each of these MIDA steps can be defined using “handlers” from the hiddenmeta package and can be adjusted to reflect details of individual study designs.

Individual designs

The individual study design simulation involves:

1. Selecting parameters: this involves specifying methods that will be used and how they will be used.
2. Using these to declare a design: the declared design can then be used to simulate data and implement analysis.
3. Diagnosing the design by repeatedly simulating instances of the design

Meta analysis

Simulated study level results feed into the meta-analysis:

1. Conduct multi-study design for as many sampling-estimator pairs in each study as possible, then diagnose the multi-study design. Calculate average (across simulations) estimand and bias of sampling-estimator for each of the studies and estimator sampling strategies. These will serve as population we will be drawing population-sampling-estimator triads

2. Estimands include:

   • Average estimand by inquiry label (within study)
   • Average bias of specific sampling-estimator pair (across studies) compared to truth
   • Average relative bias of sampling-estimator pair (across studies) compared to “gold standard”
   • Ratio of average bias to costs of sampling-estimator pair

3. Sampling consists of drawing population-sampling-estimator triads presuming that each study uses at least two sampling strategies at a time

4. Once we draw sample we use Stan model to estimate study-specific estimands and sampling-estimator specific errors (biases, study level prevalence or size, cost-effectiveness)

Getting started

• To familiarize yourself with the hiddenmeta workflow please read this vignette

This project is based at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center (IPI group) and is generously supported by a grant from the African Programming & Research Initiative to End Slavery (APRIES).