Healthy Lives – Malawi: intergenerational cohort of chronic conditions

Malawi is among the least developed and poorest countries in the world. People in Malawi, particularly children, still experience a lot of infections and increasingly suffer long-term illness such as depression, high blood pressure, diabetes and lung disease. Studies that explore the causes and consequences of long-term illness require long-term follow-up. 

We will build on existing work in urban and rural communities in Malawi that include 110,000 people. We will repeat adult health surveys and nest a birth cohort of more than 7,500 families in those communities. One of the study groups will be a rural subsistence farming/fishing community and the other will be a rapidly-growing urban community. This will allow us to understand how socioeconomic, psychological, biological, nutritional and infectious factors affect families’ health and wellbeing and allow us to explore the persistence of ill health and associated challenges between generations. Blood and other samples will be stored for future research. 

This resource will be made widely available to researchers to ensure it has the maximum impact on public health.