# Short Trainings on Methods for Recruiting, Sampling, and Counting Hard-to-Reach Populations: The H2R Training Program

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $216,876

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Behavioral and social sciences researchers continue to struggle to reach, sample, count, engage and retain
participants from socially disadvantaged and marginalized groups, or hard-to-reach populations. Hard-to-reach
populations are often those experiencing health disparities for many diseases and conditions. Such populations
include: persons experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, chronic mental illness, out of school youth,
sex workers, trafficked adolescent girls, undocumented immigrants, gang members, street children, people who
use drugs, racial/ethnic minorities, and sexual and gender minorities such as transgender persons and men who
have sex with men. There are many reasons why these groups are not fully represented or included in behavioral,
social sciences, and clinical research. One reason is the lack of training on state-of-the-art methodologies to
sample hard-to-reach populations and the advance statistical skills to analyze complex survey data within formal
training programs. Moreover, the advanced methods needed to estimate their numbers are not taught in
conventional behavioral, public health, and social sciences degree programs. These fundamental skills are
needed to advance multiple lines of research to end health disparities, to be more inclusive of diverse populations
in research, and to efficiently obtain samples of hard-to-reach populations in large enough numbers necessary
for statistically powerful study designs. Many innovations for engaging, recruiting, and sampling hard-to-reach
populations originate from HIV research but remain underutilized in other areas of behavioral and social sciences
research. This H2R training grant will capitalize on our >15 years of research with hard-to-reach populations at
risk for HIV, and a recent successful initiative, the Sampling Knowledge Hub at UCSF, to establish a core of
short courses, strengthen mentorship, and initiate lines of research among hard-to-reach populations for trainees
and mentors among graduate students and junior researchers at universities and public health practitioners of
health departments in Northern California.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10674757
- **Project number:** 5R25MH129290-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Sean Arayasirikul
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $216,876
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-08-01 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10674757

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10674757, Short Trainings on Methods for Recruiting, Sampling, and Counting Hard-to-Reach Populations: The H2R Training Program (5R25MH129290-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10674757. Licensed CC0.

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