Two means of sampling sexual minority women: how different are the samples of women?

Abstract

We compared 2 sampling approaches of sexual minority women in 1 limited geographic area to better understand the implications of these 2 sampling approaches. Sexual minority women identified through the Census did not differ on average age or the prevalence of raising children from those sampled using nonrandomized methods. Women in the convenience sample were better educated and lived in smaller households. Modeling the likelihood of disability in this population resulted in contradictory parameter estimates by sampling approach. The degree of variation observed both between sampling approaches and between different parameters suggests that the total population of sexual minority women is still unmeasured. Thoroughly constructed convenience samples will continue to be a useful sampling strategy to further research on this population.