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January 28, 2025

Human Trafficking Prevalence Estimation Feasibility Study

Authors

Shelby Hickman, Ph.D., Charlotte Lopez-Jauffret, Ph,D., Stephanie Fahy, Ph.D., Vanessa Masick, Abt Global

Current estimates of human trafficking vary widely since, by its nature, human trafficking can be challenging to see and measure. Without consistent measures, data collection, and analysis, we do not have a clear understanding of the scope of the problem, the resources needed to address trafficking, and whether efforts are working.

To support the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Abt Global conducted a study to recommend methods for estimating the prevalence of human trafficking in the U.S. Through an environmental scan and an advisory panel, Abt synthesized the information collected to recommend three methods for a pilot study that can test the feasibility of national human trafficking estimates.

These proposed methods—capture-recapture, Vincent link-tracing sampling, and random sampling that is proportional to size sampling—are designed for estimating the size of populations that are critical to understand but hard to reach.

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