Estimation for network snowball sampling: Preventing pandemics

Abstract: Snowball designs are the most natural of the network sampling designs. They have many desirable properties for sampling hidden and hard-to reach populations. They have been under-used in recent years because simple design-based estimators and confidence intervals have not been available for them. The needed estimation methods are supplied in this paper. Snowball sampling methods and accurate estimators with them are needed for sampling of the people exposed to the animals from which new coronavirus outbreaks originate, and to sample the animal populations to which they are exposed. Accurate estimates are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to reduce the risk to the people exposed to the animals. In this way the frequencies of major outbreaks and pandemics can be reduced. Snowball designs are needed in studies of sexual and opioid networks through which HIV can spread explosively, so that prevention intervention methods can be developed, accurately assessed, and effectively distributed.