Four waves of cancer-related risk behaviour and personal network data from a rural Romanian community: dataset

Dataset presentation This dataset contains four waves of personal network and cancer-related risk-behaviour data collected in a Romanian rural community, between September 2023 and September 2025, within the 4P-CAN project (HORIZON-MISS-2022-CANCER-01, project ID 101104432, programme HORIZON EUROPE). Data were collected through interviewer-assisted network interviews and link-tracing recruitment. The dataset files include 353 interviews with 142 adult respondents and five linked tables: respondent interviews (ego table), respondent-specific alter nominations (alter table), assessments of relationships between alters (alter-alter table), recruitment-node records and directed recruitment referrals. The alter table contains 7,602 roster entries, while the alter-alter table contains 41,354 retained assessments. These record counts represent different observational units and should not be interpreted as equivalent counts of individuals. The tables include selected sociodemographic, health and behavioural measures, alongside information about personal relationships and recruitment. Person identifiers (codes) support linkage across tables and waves, while reporting-respondent (interviewees) and wave identifiers preserve the source of each observation. Reports supplied by different respondents about the same person remain separate. Data collection procedures varied across waves. In particular, wave 4 distinguished returning respondents reviewing historical rosters from first-time respondents generating new rosters (lists of alters). Alter-alter relationships were not reassessed for returning respondents in wave 4. Users should consult the documentation on question routing, wave coverage, missing values and retained relationship categories before conducting longitudinal comparisons or reconstructing networks. The data tables exclude direct identifying fields and selected sensitive information and use grouped representations of several demographic variables. The release supports research on personal networks, health-related behaviours, overlapping networks and longitudinal network measurement. The recruitment design does not provide a representative population sample. This consolidated release should be distinguished from the study-specific subsets and derived outputs associated with earlier publications. Users should cite the version-specific dataset DOI and consult the accompanying documentation for the scope and interpretation of the released files. This deposit also contains the questionnaires, variable dictionary, processing documentation, and instructions for loading and linking the tables. Dataset organization Data tables: ego_table.rds/.csv; alter_table.rds/.csv; alter_alter_table.rds/.csv; linktracing_node_table.rds/.csv; linktracing_edge_table.rds/csv. Supporting files: README.md/html; METADATA_GUIDE.md/html; LINKAGE_GUIDE.md/html; QUESTIONNAIRE_GUIDE.md/html; variable_inventory.csv; variable_changes.csv; recoding_dictionary.csv; alter_alter_response_guide.csv. English version of the data collection instruments (questionnaire_w1_EN.pdf; questionnaire_w2_EN.pdf; questionnaire_w3_EN.pdf; questionnaire_w4_EN.pdf). Potential users are instructed to start with the README.md/html file. This dataset supports the following data descriptor paper that is currently under review at Scientific Data: Hâncean, M.-G., Geantă, M., Molina, J.L., Lerner, J., Ghiță, M.-C., Mihăilă, B.-E., Vidrașcu, B.A., Cioroboiu, C. Four waves of cancer-related risk behaviour and personal network data from a rural Romanian community.