Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH)

[previous title: Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (MDICP)]. One of very few long- standing longitudinal cohort studies in a poor Sub-Saharan African (SSA) context. It provides a rare record of more than a decade of demographic, socioeconomic, and health conditions in one of the world's poorest countries. The MLSFH cohorts were selected to represent the rural population of Malawi, where the vast majority of Malawians live in conditions that are similar to those in the rural areas of other countries with high HIV prevalence: health conditions are poor, health facilities and schools are over-burdened and under-staffed, standards of living are low and nutritional needs of adults, children and the elderly are often not met. With 7 major data collection rounds between 1998 and 2012 for up to 4,000 individuals, as well as ancillary surveys and qualitative studies, the MLSFH has been a premier dataset for research on health, family dynamics, social networks, and HIV infection risks in a rural SSA context. Providing public-use data on the socioeconomic context, demographics and health of individuals and their families in Malawi over more than a decade, the MLSFH has been the basis of more than 150 publications and working papers submitted for publication. Importantly, the MLSFH has also informed health policy discussions in Malawi and elsewhere in SSA. The MLSFH/MDICP was originally developed as a sister project of the Kenya Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (KDICP), but with a larger sample and greater geographical dispersion. Both the KDICP and the MLSFH/MDICP aimed to examine the role of social interactions in changing demographic attitudes and behavior. The first 2 waves of the MLSFH data collected in 1998 and 2001 are archived and available for download at ICPSR-DSDR. The first 2 waves focused on two key empirical questions: the roles of social interactions in (1) the acceptance (or rejection) of modern contraceptive methods and of smaller ideal family size and (2) the diffusion of knowledge of AIDS symptoms and transmission mechanisms and the evaluation of acceptable strategies of protection against AIDS.