Assessing the contribution of traditional biomass cook stoves to household air pollution in Buvuma district

Abstract

The study was aimed at assessing the contribution of traditional biomass cook stoves to household air pollution in Busamuzi Sub County, Buvuma district. The study was guided by research objectives: To evaluate the relationship between socio-economic characteristics and types of biomass fuel use in Buvuma district. To examine the health issues of indoor air pollution from biomass fuels to the people in Buvuma district. To determine the awareness level of people about the biomass air pollutants in Buvuma district. The study was carried out in Buvuma district in central region of Uganda. Out of the 4 sub counties in the district, Busamuzi Sub County was randomly selected. Stratified random sampling was done based on the three 3 villages Nkere, Tome and Kitamiro which were randomly selected as the study strata. 30 respondents were selected to participate in a social survey using a researcher administered semi structured questionnaire. Systematic random sampling was done where respondents were selected using the interval of 4. To analyze objective 1, the relationship between socio-economic status and use of biomass fuels descriptive statistics such as cross tabulation was used. To analyze objective 2, the health issues of indoor air pollution from biomass fuels to the people of Buvuma district, descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and cross tabulation were used. To analyze objective 3, the level of awareness about indoor air pollution, descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages of respondents who were aware as well as those who were not aware. The study revealed that the most biomass fuels used by respondents were firewood (48.9%) and charcoal (43.3%) due to low levels of income coupled with other socio-economic characteristics such as respondents’ age, marital status, sex, household size and occupation. The study found out that most people thought biomass smoke had negative impacts on their health with most of them suffering from eye irritation (40%), cough (27.8%) and complicated breathing (16.7%).The study found out that few respondents (44.4%) had heard about IAP from biomass fuels in the past 5 years which indicted low levels of public awareness about impacts of biomass fuel use to their health.