Malawian Couples Relationship Status Data from Longitudinal Health Study

Tsogolo La Thanzi Couples Data links partners across 10 survey waves from 2009 to 2015 for couple-level analysis. The dataset includes unique identifiers for each couple and individual respondents, designed to merge with main study datasets. It was created to examine relationship dynamics among young adults in Balaka, Malawi, a population navigating reproduction during an AIDS epidemic.

Use Cases

• Analyze changes in relationship status across 10 survey waves using the wave-indicating variable and status variables.
• Link individual respondent data from main TLT studies using the COUPLEID, MALEID, and FEMALEID identifiers for dyadic analysis.
• Study the correlation between partner-reported information using the two linking variables that indicate where partners answered questions about one another.
• Track family formation patterns over a 6-year period from 2009 to 2015 within the specified Malawian cohort.

Strengths

• Data constructed from all 10 waves of the longitudinal TLT-1 and TLT-2 studies, providing multi-year coverage.
• Includes specific linking variables (COUPLEID, MALEID, FEMALEID) for reliable merging with primary respondent datasets.
• Baseline survey achieved a 95 percent interview completion rate among recruited respondents.

Limitations

• Geographic scope is limited to young people living within a 7-kilometer radius of Balaka, Malawi.
• The core dataset is a linking file; substantive analysis requires merging with other TLT datasets not included here.
• Temporal coverage has a gap between the end of TLT-1 in 2012 and the TLT-2 follow-up in 2015.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse, authored by Sara Yeatman.

Collection Method

Data compiled from an intensive longitudinal design with interviews conducted every four months at a centralized research center.

Time Range

2009 to 2015

Freshness

Data collection was completed in 2015; the metadata was last updated in 2026.

Geography

Balaka, Malawi (respondents within a 7-kilometer radius)