Dont spin the pen two alternative methods for second-stage sampling in urban cluster surveys.docVIP

Emerging Themes in Epidemiology BioMedCentral Analytic perspective Open Access Dont spin the pen: two alternative methods for second-stage sampling in urban cluster surveys Rebecca F Grais*, Angela MC Rose and Jean-Paul Guthmann Address: Epicentre, 8, rue Saint Sabin, 75011 Paris, France Email: Rebecca F Grais* - rebecca.grais@; Angela MC Rose - angela.rose@; Jean- Paul Guthmann - jp.guthmann@invs.sante.fr * Corresponding author Published: 1 June 2007 Received: 25 October 2006 Accepted: 1 June 2007 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2007, 4:8 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-4-8 This article is available from: /content/4/1/8 ? 2007 Grais et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract In two-stage cluster surveys, the traditional method used in second-stage sampling (in which the first household in a cluster is selected) is time-consuming and may result in biased estimates of the indicator of interest. Firstly, a random direction from the center of the cluster is selected, usually by spinning a pen. The houses along that direction are then counted out to the boundary of the cluster, and one is then selected at random to be the first household surveyed. This process favors households towards the center of the cluster, but it could easily be improved. During a recent meningitis vaccination coverage survey in Maradi, Niger, we compared this method of first household selection to two alternatives in urban zones: 1) using a superimposed grid on the map of the cluster area and randomly selecting an intersection; and 2) drawing the perimeter of the cluster area using a Global Positioning System (GPS) and randomly selecting one point within the perimeter. Although we only compared a l