Women and girls in resource poor countries experience much greater exposure to household air pollutants than men: results from Uganda and Ethiopia.

Okelloa, Gabriel, Devereux, Graham ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0024-4887 and Semplea, Sean (2018) 'Women and girls in resource poor countries experience much greater exposure to household air pollutants than men: results from Uganda and Ethiopia.'. Environment International, Vol 119, pp. 429-437.

Text Okello et al Revised Manuscript R3 (002).doc - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (1MB)

Abstract

Household Air Pollution (HAP) from burning biomass fuels is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in low-income settings worldwide. Little is known about the differences in objective personal HAP exposure by age and gender.
We measured personal exposure to HAP across six groups defined by age and gender (young children, young males, young females, adult males, adult females, and elderly) in rural households in two sub-Saharan African countries.
Data on 24-hour personal exposure to HAP were collected from 215 participants from 85 households in Uganda and Ethiopia. HAP exposure was assessed by measuring carbon monoxide (CO) and/or fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations using five types of devices.
24 hour PM2.5 personal exposure was highest among adult females with Geometric Mean (GM) and Geometric Standard Deviation (GSD) concentrations of 205 µg/m3 (1.67) in Ethiopia; 177 µg /m3 (1.61 GSD) in Uganda. The lowest PM2.5 exposures were recorded among the young males GM (GSD) 30.2 µg /m3 (1.89) in Ethiopia; 26.3 µg /m3 (1.48) in Uganda). Young females had exposures about two-thirds of the adult female group. Adult males, young children and the elderly experienced lower exposures reflecting their limited involvement in cooking. There was a similar pattern of exposure by age and gender in both countries and when assessed by CO measurement.
There are substantial differences in exposure to HAP depending on age and gender in sub-Saharan Africa rural households reflecting differences in household cooking activity and time spent indoors. Future work should consider these differences when implementing exposure reduction interventions. There was a strong agreement between optical and gravimetric devices measurements although optical devices tended to overestimate exposure. There is need to calibrate optical devices against a gravimetric standard prior to quantifying exposure.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	WA Public Health > WA 30 Socioeconomic factors in public health (General) WA Public Health > Health Problems of Special Population Groups > WA 309 Women's health WA Public Health > Health Problems of Special Population Groups > WA 395 Health in developing countries WA Public Health > Sanitation. Environmental Control > General Sanitation and Environmental Control > WA 670 General works WA Public Health > Air pollution > WA 750 Air sanitation and hygiene WA Public Health > Air pollution > WA 754 Pollution and pollutants (incl. tobacco pollution; passive smoking)
Faculty: Department:	Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.07.002
Depositing User:	Stacy Murtagh
Date Deposited:	25 Jul 2018 08:39
Last Modified:	30 Aug 2019 13:52
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/8894

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