Household Air Pollutions From Cooking Fuel And Respiratory Health Risks Among Children Under Five In Ghana.

Abstract

Background: The use of biomass fuel is still prevalent as a means of cooking in most parts of the world. Over 3 billion people in the world rely on biomass fuel for cooking, heating and lightening purposes. It is estimated that over 2.5 billion people in the developing world depend on biomass as their primary cooking energy source for cooking. Examples of dirty fuels used for daily cooking purposes are charcoal, wood, animal dung and crop residue. However, smoke from these fuels causes about 4.3 million deaths annually from respiratory illness with about 500,000 deaths in children from developing countries yearly and approximately 16,000 deaths from Ghana alone yearly, the mortality rate is very high in women and children from developing countries. This study therefore sought to investigate health implications of dirty cooking fuels usage on infection in the pulmonary tract in infants below five years. Methods: This study was a retrospective cross-sectional study, with data from Demographic and Health Survey of Ghana done in 2014. Analysis was done using Stata 15. Simple frequencies was used to compare prevalence of ARI in households using dirty fuel and those wins clean fuel. The link between dirty fuel and infections in the respiratory tract was examined using logistic regression. A statistically significant p-value of <0.05 was used. Other confounding variables were also controlled for. Results: The study showed that the prevalence of ARI was 4% and higher among children who resided in rural areas (4.4%) compared to those who resided in the urban areas (2.5%). The results further showed that children who resided in the rural areas were 1.23 time at risk of ARJ compared to those in the urban areas after adjusting for probable confounders [aOR I. 23 (95% CI: 0.91 – 1.55); p=0.083]. Children whose mothers used dirty fuel were 1.07 times men likely to develop ARI compared to children whose mothers use dean fuel, however this was not statistically, significant [aOR=1.07 (95% CI: 0.81 - 1.43) ;p=0.62].

Conclusion: Burning dirty fuels at home escalated the risk of acute respiratory infection (ARI) especially in children under live years. Dirty fuels use for household purposes has a detrimental health effect and this is a major public threat. Clean fuel should be made accessible affordable and available to lessen the harmful effects of biomass fuels or solid fuel.