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The Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH) is one of very few long-standing publicly-available longitudinal cohort studies in a 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. With data collection rounds in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012+2013, and forthcoming through 2020, for up to 4,000 individuals, the MLSFH permits researchers to investigate the multiple influences that contribute to HIV risks in sexual partnerships, the variety of ways that people manage risk within and outside of marriage, the possible effects of HIV prevention policies and programs, and the mechanisms through which poor rural individuals, families, households, and communities cope with the impacts of high morbidity and mortality that are often—but not always—related to HIV/AIDS. Graduate students in the Demography Ph.D. program offered via the Graduate Group in Demography and housed at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania as well as graduate students working with MLSFH researchers at other institutions occasionally write dissertations on Malawi that are subsequently included in this series.