  Measuring close proximity interactions between individuals can provide key
information on social contacts in human communities. With the present study, we
report the quantitative assessment of contact patterns in a village in rural
Malawi, based on proximity sensors technology that allows for high-resolution
measurements of social contacts. The system provided information on community
structure of the village, on social relationships and social assortment between
individuals, and on daily contacts activity within the village. Our findings
revealed that the social network presented communities that were highly
correlated with household membership, thus confirming the importance of family
ties within the village. Contacts within households occur mainly between adults
and children, and adults and adolescents. This result suggests that the
principal role of adults within the family is the care for the youngest. Most
of the inter-household interactions occurred among caregivers and among
adolescents. We studied the tendency of participants to interact with
individuals with whom they shared similar attributes (i.e., assortativity). Age
and gender assortativity were observed in inter-household network, showing that
individuals not belonging to the same family group prefer to interact with
people with whom they share similar age and gender. Age disassortativity is
observed in intra-household networks. Family members congregate in the early
morning, during lunch time and dinner time. In contrast, individuals not
belonging to the same household displayed a growing contact activity from the
morning, reaching a maximum in the afternoon. The data collection
infrastructure used in this study seems to be very effective to capture the
dynamics of contacts by collecting high resolution temporal data and to give
access to the level of information needed to understand the social context of
the village.
