Special Collection 1 - Article 12 | Pages 373–396  

Change and instability: A multilevel analysis of AIDS-related conversational networks among Malawian women

By Alexander A. Weinreb

This article is part of the Special Collection 1 "Social Interactions and HIV/AIDS in Rural Africa"

Abstract

This article examines changes in network structure using data on conversational networks from the 1998 and 2001 rounds of the Malawi Diffusion and Ideation Change project. The principal aims are to show that network structure can change significantly in relatively short periods - in particular at times of rapid social change - and that multilevel analysis is an effective way to explore these types of changes.
The article demonstrates that: (i) conversations about AIDS are increasingly occurring within all demographic groups in rural Malawi, (ii) AIDS-related conversational networks have diversified, (iii) there is significant village-level variance in characteristics of reported network partners, but it is a minimal source of total variance in such characteristics, and (iv) that there is significant covariance between the estimated residuals associated with key predictors of size of AIDS- related conversational networks.

Author's Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Heterophily in rural Malawi: A small-area observational study of social interaction
Volume 31 - Article 50

Social inequality and HIV-testing: Comparing home- and clinic-based testing in rural Malawi
Volume 21 - Article 21

Hotspots and Coldspots: Household and village-level variation in orphanhood prevalence in rural Malawi
Volume 19 - Article 32

An Assessment of the KDICP and MDICP Data Quality: Interviewer Effects, Question Reliability and Sample Attrition
Special Collection 1 - Article 2

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