Addressing Hard-to-Reach Populations & Sensitive Topics

Topics to be covered during the talk will include describing hard-to-reach populations, current “reach” challenges, various recruitment strategies, discussion on sensitive topics by survey mode, validation of certain sensitive topics, and future directions in recruitment and research.

Bio: Sabina Hirshfield, PhD
Dr. Hirshfield is a Principal Research Scientist in the STAR Program at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, where she conducts NIH-funded eHealth HIV prevention studies with sexual and gender minority populations. Her work has focused on reducing HIV transmission risk behaviors with video- and message-based interventions. Her current focus is on biomedical HIV prevention strategies, including home collection of dried blood spots for lab-quantified HIV testing and viral load. Dr. Hirshfield earned her PhD in Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health.