Prevalence of high-risk behaviors in reproductive age women in Alborz province in 2019 using unmatched count technique

Abstract

Background: Our knowledge on the prevalence of high-risk behaviors among women of Alborz is not reliable due to the sensitivity of the issue. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of seven risk behaviors among the reproductive age women in Alborz Province, Iran. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 2000 women were randomly selected from a registered healthcare system in 2019. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect the required data. The prevalence of the risk behaviors including drug abuse, hookah, alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking, extramarital intercourse, and gambling was estimated using the unmatched count technique, and the prevalence rate was reported at a 95% confidence interval. Results: The response rate for this study was 95%. The estimated prevalence for drug abuse, hookah, alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking, extramarital intercourse, and gambling were 3% (

Scrambling Reports: New Estimators for Estimating the Population Mean of Sensitive Variables

“…The bogus pipeline and unmatched count techniques serve their purpose of protecting the confidentiality of respondents. However, their shortcomings compared to randomized response techniques lie in the implementation costs, the veracity of the results due to the lack of unbiased estimators, and their characteristics (variance, estimation error, and so on); see [4,5]. Due to its methodology and statistical foundations, Warner's [3] proposal is the most appropriate for reducing response bias and non-response rates, estimating the characteristic of interest, and maintaining the confidentiality of the respondent so as to protect them from being stigmatized when providing a sensitive response.…”

Large sampling errors when using the Unmatched Count Technique to estimate prevalence: A simulation study

“…The Unmatched Count Technique (UCT) aims to avoid such bias by not asking respondents directly about a characteristic. It has been used to estimate the prevalence of characteristics about which respondents might underreport, including sexual behaviors (LaBrie and Earleywine 2000; Bahadivand et al 2020), misconduct (e.g., Dalton, Wimbush, and Daily 1994), conservation behaviors (Hinsley et al 2019;Spira et al 2021;Olmedo et al 2022), and violent extremism (Clemmow et al 2020).…”