Household air pollution (HAP) is a leading risk factor for global burden of disease. Resource-constrained communities of the world especially women and children are significantly impacted by this challenge. To address household air pollution, cleaner and more efficient improved cookstoves (ICS) have been disseminated to low resource communities. Although there has been initial uptake of these stoves, sustained use has been inconsistent adding to the challenge of household air pollution. There is limited understanding at the intersections of social, ecological, and technical determinants of sustained use of ICS, and how is sustained use of ICS associated with exposure and health outcomes in poor communities.
The overarching goal of this exploratory study is to initiate a comprehensive research program that will facilitate the use of ICS and investigate whether they render significant health benefits among rural Indian households.
The investigators installed ICS (model: Eco-Chulla XXL) in select households that primarily use biomass for cooking, and evaluate the intervention based on three specific aims:
1. To generate preliminary emissions data [particulate matter - mass and surface area based, carbon monoxide (CO)] from ICS and its effect on respiratory health outcomes that will facilitate the development of a pivotal clean cookstove intervention
2. To generate effect size data that establish the feasibility and inform the sample size of a pivotal trial whose primary objective will be sustained improvements in the respiratory health of women and children in rural India
3. To evaluate factors which enable and hinder the sustained use of clean cookstove technologies by the rural poor in India so that the investigators can develop a more refined pivotal intervention focused on improving respiratory health
