Cape Town social contact data

Permanent identifier

https://doi.org/10.17037/DATA.00002756

Description

Social contact data collected from 1115 adults (aged 15+ years) located in Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is comprised of five data tables:

1. Main data: contains information on participant age, religion, education level, employment status, household income, duration lived in home, number of people in household, places worked in past 4 weeks;
2. Household data: contains information on the participants’ household members;
3. Close contacts data: contains detailed information on participants’ close contacts;
4. Building data: contains information on time spent and people present in indoor locations that the participants visited;
5. Transport data: contains information on time spent and people present on transport used by the participants.

Data collection method

The study team conducted a social contact survey in a community in Western Cape, South Africa, between May and October 2019. In total, 1530 adults (aged 15+ years) were selected using age- and sex-stratified random sampling, based on a census conducted in the study population in February and March 2019. Of the 1530 people sampled, 1214 (93%) were successfully contacted, 117 (8%) had moved or died, 193 (13%) had had incorrect information listed in the census, and 6 were uncontactable. Of the 1214 people contacted, 77 (6%) refused to be interviewed and 14 were ineligible (due to disability or lack of English and isiXhosa). Of 1123 people interviewed, technical issues meant that data from 8 interviews were lost, leaving 1115 (92%) completed interviews.

Participants were assigned a day at random in the previous week, and were asked for information on the people they spoke to (face to face) or touched on that day, the indoor locations they visited, and the transport they used. Basic demographic information and more detailed information on visits to certain types of location were also collected.

Dataset risk assessment

The dataset does not contain direct identifiers. Indirect identifiers, such as age, living arrangements, and location, have been broadened or removed to reduce the likelihood of participants being identified.

Dataset access procedure

The study ethics approval and participant consent allows data to be made available to researchers on condition that the dataset is fully anonymised.

• Datasets were made available on request between 11 April 2022 – 28 February 2024.
• An open access instance of the datasets were made available on 29 February 2024.

The Main_data_sensitive and Close_contact_sensitive data contain additional information collected and analysed as part of the research. This information cannot be made openly available, due to the potential for indirect identification. Limited access for research verification and reuse may be permitted for use in ethically approved research, on condition that the work complies with ethical conditions applied in the original study and a data transfer agreement is signed by the recipient organisation. Interested parties are advised to contact the study investigators to discuss their proposed research.

Data codebook

• Main data
• Buildings data
• Close contacts data
• Household data codebook
• Transport data
• Close contacts data sensitive
• Main data sensitive

Main data

Buildings data

Close contacts data

Household data codebook

Transport data

Close contacts data sensitive

The Main_data_sensitive and Close_contact_sensitive data contain sensitive information that was collected and used for analysis. These may be used for ethically approved research on condition that a data transfer agreement is signed by the recipient organisation.

Main data sensitive