Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH)
In 1998, MLSFH recruited women aged 15 - 49 from Rumphi, Mchinji, and Balaka districts in Malawi who had been married at some point in their lives. Their spouses were also recruited into the study. At baseline data collection, over 1,500 ever-married women and over 1,000 of their spouses were recruited, resulting in a cohort of over 2,500 participants. At each data collection, new spouses of the original participants are included in the study. In 2004, MLSFH added 1,000 adolescents aged 15 - 24 to compensate for the ageing of the original sample. In 2008, parents of the original cohort were also invited to participate.
Study design
Cohort
Number of participants at first data collection
2,597 (participants)
Recruitment is ongoing
Age at first data collection
15 - 49 years (participants)
Participant year of birth
Varied (participants)
Participant sex
All
Representative sample at baseline?
The rural population of Malawi.
Sample features
Country
Year of first data collection
1998
Primary Institutions
Compelling Works (CW)
Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHES)
University of Malawi
University of Pennsylvania
Profile paper DOI
Funders
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Rockefeller Foundation (RF)
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Ongoing?
Yes
Data types collected
- Activity log (e.g. food, sleep, exercise)
- Interview – face-to-face
- Interview – phone
- Physical or biological assessment (e.g. blood, saliva, gait, grip strength, anthropometry)
- Secondary data
- Ethnography or participant observation
- Interviews or focus groups
- None
- Geographic, spatial & environmental data
- Healthcare data
Engagement
Keywords
Consortia and dataset groups
