The Likoma Network Study: Context, Data Collection and Initial Results

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Africa
Age
AIDS
Biomarkers
Birth
Birth control
Births
Census
Children
Condom use
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Contraception
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Data Collection
Death
Demographic measures
Demography
Developing countries
Disease
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Divorce
Education
Empirical study
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Epidemiology
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First sex
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Global Positioning Systems
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Health
Health Behavior
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HIV
HIV infection
HIV prevalence
HIV risk factors
HIV risk perception
HIV risk perceptions
HIV risks
HIV status
HIV testing
HIV tests
HIV transmission
HIV/AIDS
Household
Household informants
Household structure
Households
Interviews
Island
Life course
Likoma
Likoma Network Study (LNS)
Malawi
Marital behavior
Marital dissolution
Marital history
Marital partners
Marriage
Marriage processes
Methods
Migrants
Migration
Mortality
Network epidemiology
Non-marital partners
Out-of-wedlock childbirth
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Polygamy
Population Studies
Premarital partners
Premarital sex
Public Health
Quantitative
Rapid HIV test
Relationships
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Sexual behavior
Sexual behaviors
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Sexual network
Sexual network partners
Sexual networks
Sexual partners
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Sexually transmitted diseases
Sexually transmitted infections
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Social network analysis
Social networks
Sociocentric
Socio-demographic Characteristics
Socioeconomic
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STD
STI
Sub-Saharan Africa
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Timing of marriage
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Demography, Population, and Ecology
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Sociology
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Abstract

The sexual networks connecting members of a population have important consequences for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. However, very few datasets currently exist that allow an investigation of the structure of sexual networks, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where HIV epidemics have become generalized. In this paper, we describe the context and methods of the Likoma Network Study (LNS), a survey of complete sexual networks we conducted in Likoma island (Malawi) between October 2005 and March 2006. We start by reviewing theoretical arguments and empirical studies emphasizing the importance of network structures for the epidemiology of sexually and transmitted diseases. We describe the island setting of this study, and argue that the choice of an island as research site addresses the possible sources of bias in the collection of complete network data. We then describe in detail our empirical strategy for the identification of sexual networks, as well as for the collection of biomarker data (HIV infection). Finally, we provide initial results relating to the socioeconomic context of the island, the size and composition of sexual networks, the prevalence of HIV in the study population, the quality of the sexual network data, the determinants of successful contact tracing during the LNS, and basic measures of network connectivity.

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2007-06-09
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Helleringer, Stéphane, Hans-Peter Kohler, Agnes Chimbiri, Praise Chatonda, and James Mkandawire. 2007. “The Likoma Network Study: Context, Data Collection and Initial Results.” PSC Working Paper Series PSC 07-05.
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