Personal and Micro-Environmental Monitoring of Cookstove Emissions in Rural Northern Ghana

Abstract

Exposure to air pollution caused by cooking with solid fuels is estimated to cause 4 million excess deaths per year (Global Burden of Disease Study 2010) and in many regions, personal exposures to cookstove pollution and clean cookstove adoption is still poorly understood. REACCTING (Research of Emissions, Air Quality, Climate, and Cooking Technologies In Northern Ghana) is a multi-year project studying the emissions, exposure, and atmospheric implications of cooking behaviors in Northern Ghana. The project includes a cookstove intervention amongst a rural population in Sub-Saharan African in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Two hundred randomly selected households with at least one woman aged 25-60 years and one child aged 0-5 years were chosen for participation. The study includes four groups: 50 households were given two Philips High Efficiency Cookstoves (www.ace.co.ls), 50 households were given two wood burning stoves produced in Accra, Ghana (Gyapa), 50 households were given one Philips and one Gyapa stove, and 50 households were selected as a control group. At a subset of households from each study group, personal and micro-environmental real-time carbon monoxide (CO) and integrated particulate matter with diameters less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) are being measured. Stove usage is also monitored at these households, using temperature data loggers, to assess stove adoption and identify relationships between personal exposure and cooking behavior in each study arm. We present results for the first six months of personal CO and PM2.5 (EC/OC) exposure measurements, as well as modeling results relating the personal and micro-environmental measurements.