Data collection methods.
Project staff trained community-based volunteers in completion of the COVID-19 Behaviors Questionnaire, who in turn trained parenting group head mothers. At each biweekly group meeting, the head mother administered a COVID-19 Behaviors Questionnaire to each respondent. Questionnaires were developed by project personnel and translated by a qualified translator into the local languages of Chitonga and Chinyanja. Questionnaires were completed on paper in the local languages. Project staff and short-term hires trained in research ethics continuously collected and extracted the paper questionnaires using SurveyCTODistance from the nearest government-assigned rural health center (RHC) was collected at the community-based parenting group (CBPG) and respondent-level. A village database was previously created by taking GPS coordinates in each village center within the study sites. ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, California, USA) was then used to calculate the distance from village center to the corresponding RHC.When an individual completed the questionnaire more than once, they reported on different 2-week periods, and thus different gatherings attended. All gatherings, however, are not necessarily unique: two respondents, for example, may have attended the same funeral and would report their own perceptions and behaviors. Respondents were asked about four types of gatherings, and thus could report on four unique experiences in one questionnaire.