Abstract
IntroductionA study was conducted in three districts in Hai Phong province, Vietnam to estimate the population size of the Female Sex Workers (FSW) in June–July 2019.MethodsThe procedures included selection of three districts, compilation of a list of accessible venues where FSW congregate, distribution of first unique objects (first capture) and second unique objects (second capture) to FSW in randomly selected venues and implementation of a Mini-Respondent Driven Sampling (mRDS) Survey (third capture). Population size of the FSW was calculated based on the number of FSW in each round, number of FSW ‘recaptured’ during the second and the third captures. Additionally, personal network size data captured in the mRDS was used to measure the population of FSW within the three districts using Successive Sampling Population Size Estimates (SS-PSE).ResultsThe total estimated FSWs in the three selected districts, using Three Source Capture–Recapture (3S-CRC) was 958, which is slightly lower than that estimated using SS-PSE – 1192. The 3S-CRC method yielded a provincial estimate of 1911 while the SS-PSE method resulted in a total of 2379 FSW for the province.ConclusionTwo techniques produced different PSE at both the district and the province levels and resulted in estimates lower than ones produced using programmatic data. For planning HIV prevention and care service needs among all FSWs, additional studies are needed to estimate the number of sex workers who are not venue-based and use social media platforms to sell services.
Highlights
A study was conducted in three districts in Hai Phong province, Vietnam to estimate the population size of the Female Sex Workers (FSW) in June–July 2019
Population Size Estimates (PSE) of Key Populations (KP), including those affected by HIV/AIDS, help policy makers and program administrators understand the scope of the HIV epidemic, plan appropriate interventions, and allocate enough resources
This paper describes a population size estimation activity conducted among FSW in Hai Phong
Summary
A study was conducted in three districts in Hai Phong province, Vietnam to estimate the population size of the Female Sex Workers (FSW) in June–July 2019. The HIV epidemic in Vietnam is concentrated primarily among Key Populations (KP) including People Who Inject Drugs (PWID), Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), and Female Sex Workers (FSW) [1]. In Vietnam, sex work is considered as “illegal” and sex workers were required to pay fines if they were caught by the police [3]. This leads to underground sex industry with sex workers living in fear of being punished and limited data are available on the number of sex workers. It is estimated that there are about 85,500 FSW aged from 15 to 49 years old [4], that represents about 0.34% of the general female 15–49 population in Vietnam in 2019 [4]
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