BACKGROUND
The network scale-up method (NSUM) was recommended by the United Nations Programme on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and the World Health Organization to estimate the sizes of the populations at high risk of HIV infection in 2010; however, we found that the NSUM also revealed underlying population characteristics of female sex workers (FSWs) in addition to being used to estimate the size of the FSWs population.
OBJECTIVE
We aimed to conduct a further exploration of the public health implications of the NSUM.
METHODS
An NSUM survey was conducted to estimate the size population of injecting drug users (IDUs) in the urban district of Taiyuan, China in 2021.
RESULTS
The estimated size of the IDU population in Taiyuan was 1,244 (95% CI: 1,011-1,477), corresponding to 0.044% (95% CI: 0.036%-0.052%) of the adult population aged 15-64 years. The estimated popularity ratio of the IDU population was 0.535 (95% CI: 0.512-0.558), and the estimated information transmission rate was 0.879 (95% CI: 0.867-0.892).
CONCLUSIONS
The NSUM revealed that the IDU population have smaller sized personal social networks while concealing their high-risk behaviours, and these underlying population characteristics are extremely useful for planning appropriate service delivery approaches with the fewest barriers for high-risk populations to access HIV prevention services.