Implementation of Respondent Driven Sampling for Hard-to-Reach Populations: A Survey of Female Migrants in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia 1 Natalia Zotova Ohio State University Victor Agadjanian University of Kansas Julia Isaeva Nizhniy Novgorod State Medical Academy Tohir Kalandarov Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow Abstract Respondent Driven Sampling is a probability based sampling method that allows recruiting hard to reach populations through their social networks. Surveying migrant populations is challenging due to the absence of reliable statistics on and the knowledge of key characteristics of the target population (Platt et al. 2014). Irregular migrants in the Russian context are marginalized and share many characteristics of traditional targets of RDS studies. Beside unknown sampling frame, the irregular legal status may hinder migrants’ participation in research. In the paper we focus on the implementation of Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) for the study of Central Asian migrant women in the city of Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, in 2014 2 . We describe the sampling procedures and challenges involved in recruitment and interviewing 1 The support of the RFBR grant #13-06-91441 and NICHD grant #R21HD078201 is gratefully acknowledged. 2 Research project Behavioral and institutional barriers to HIV prevention among migrant women, 2014-2016; Collaborative Research Partnerships on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS and Comorbidities, NIH-RFBR.