DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37957.v1
title: Project Positive Attitudes Towards Health, Michigan, 2017
title: Version 1

description: Project Positive Attitudes Towards Health (PATH) was a survey conducted as a part of a larger study, "Empirical Assessment of Respondent Driven Sampling from Total Survey Error Perspectives," supported by the National Science Foundation. The larger study aims to examine operational as well as inferential properties of respondent driven sampling (RDS). The Project PATH was an application of RDS specific to the in-person environment targeting persons who inject drugs (PWID), a group associated with illicit and stigmatized behaviors and, hence, difficult to recruit in Southeast Michigan, which included Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties. The Project PATH started in May 2017 and continued until the first week of November 2017 with a total sample size of 410 for the main survey. Questions in the main survey were largely adopted from the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and covered topics such as general health, mental health, illicit drug use, health risk behaviors, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, sexual orientation, health care service utilization and as well as socio-demographics. Questions specific to the interest of the local stakeholders were developed; these included topics related to Hepatitis A and access to naloxone. Demographic variables include gender, race, marital status, education level, age, and employment status.
description: This study aims to examine operational as well as inferential properties of respondent driven sampling (RDS). The Project PATH was an application of RDS specific to the in-person environment targeting persons who inject drugs (PWID), a group associated with illicit and stigmatized behaviors and, hence, difficult to recruit in Southeast Michigan, which included Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties.
description: The in-person data collection was planned for the Project PATH; specifically, selected data collection sites were in the City of Detroit (for Wayne County), the Cities of Warren and Roseville (for Macomb County) and the City of Port Huron (for St. Clair County). The interview facilities included county health departments, methadone clinics and university-based community centers. Four interviewers were hired and trained for the Project PATH. These interviewers all had prior experiences with the local persons who inject drugs (PWID) community in various capacities and rotated across interview sites.
description: The public use data file includes variables on types of drugs respondents used, health conditions, if they accessed treatment, and questions regarding their mental health. The restricted use data file includes variables on respondents' recruiters for the study, individuals that respondents recruited, whether respondents had overdosed before, and needle usage.
description: The Project PATH used respondent driven sampling (RDS), which was proposed for recruiting rare, elusive and hard-to-reach populations. RDS starts with a small number of participants, called "seeds." RDS data collection typically starts with seeds who are eligible for the study. Once the seeds complete their participation, they are asked to recruit their peers (e.g., friends) who are also eligible for the study. The peers participate in the data collection and are asked to recruit their peers and the data collection based on this chain referral continues until a desired sample size is achieved or some other criteria (e.g., field period) are encountered.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Public Use Data DS2: Restricted Use Data
description: Injection drug users in Southeast Michigan. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: audio computer-assisted self interview (ACASI); computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); face-to-face interview; telephone interviewDate variables M_IWENDDATE and M_IWSTARTDATE are formatted incorrectly. They can be converted using the following SAS code: NewDateVariable = put(ExistingDateVariable , yymmddn8.)