Exposures to Carbon Monoxide in a Cookstove Intervention in Northern Ghana

Ricardo Piedrahita,Christine Wiedinmyer,Michael P Hannigan,Evan R Coffey,Katherine L Dickinson,Abraham Oduro,Yolanda Hagar,Ernest Kanyomse

doi:10.3390/atmos10070402

Abstract

Biomass burning for home energy use is a major environmental health concern. Improved cooking technologies could generate environmental health benefits, yet prior results regarding reduced personal exposure to air pollution are mixed. In this study, two improved stove types were distributed over four study groups in Northern Ghana. Participants wore real-time carbon monoxide (CO) monitors to measure the effect of the intervention on personal exposures. Relative to the control group (those using traditional stoves), there was a 30.3% reduction in CO exposures in the group given two Philips forced draft stoves (p = 0.08), 10.5% reduction in the group given two Gyapa stoves (locally made rocket stoves) (p = 0.62), and 10.2% reduction in the group given one of each (p = 0.61). Overall, CO exposure for participants was low given the prevalence of cooking over traditional three-stone fires, with 8.2% of daily samples exceeding WHO Tier-1 standards. We present quantification methods and performance of duplicate monitors. We analyzed the relationship between personal carbonaceous particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) and CO exposure for the dataset that included both measurements, finding a weak relationship likely due to the diversity of identified air pollution sources in the region and behavior variability.

Highlights

Carbon monoxide (CO) is commonly measured in cookstove and air pollution exposure studies due to its association with adverse health effects and birth outcomes such as low birth weight [1,2,3], the relatively low cost of real-time wearable monitors, logistical challenges of measuring other pollutants, and a correlation with other co-emitted pollutants
Males and females listed as non-primary cooks experienced 36.7% (p = 0.02) and 33.2% (p = 0.03) lower average carbon monoxide (CO) exposures than female primary cooks, respectively
Using the mixed effects model described in Equation (1) on the un-calibrated exposure data demonstrated that the results were stable and consistent with the results presented in Table 2, though some covariates did shift out of significance (SI Section 5)

Summary

Introduction

Carbon monoxide (CO) is commonly measured in cookstove and air pollution exposure studies due to its association with adverse health effects and birth outcomes such as low birth weight [1,2,3], the relatively low cost of real-time wearable monitors, logistical challenges of measuring other pollutants, and a (hypothesized) correlation with other co-emitted pollutants. These reasons, along with the well-established health effects associated with particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5 ) [4], have led to the study and use of CO as a surrogate for PM2.5. Details of the study design [11] and region [12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion