Pregnant Women's Exposure to Household Air Pollution in Rural Bangladesh: A Feasibility Study for Poriborton: The CHANge Trial.

Jonathan Thornburg,Sk Masum Billah,Sajia Islam,Ashraful Alam,Michelle Mccombs,Brianna Chan,Camille Raynes-Greenow,Maggie Abbott

doi:10.3390/ijerph19010482

Abstract

The use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking is a strategy to reduce household air pollution (HAP) exposure and improve health. We conducted this feasibility study to evaluate personal exposure measurement methods to representatively assess reductions in HAP exposure. We enrolled 30 pregnant women to wear a MicroPEM for 24 h to assess their HAP exposure when cooking with a traditional stove (baseline) and with an LPG stove (intervention). The women wore the MicroPEM an average of 77% and 69% of the time during the baseline and intervention phases, respectively. Mean gravimetric PM2.5 mass and black carbon concentrations were comparable during baseline and intervention. Temporal analysis of the MicroPEM nephelometer data identified high PM2.5 concentrations in the afternoon, late evening, and overnight during the intervention phase. Likely seasonal sources present during the intervention phase were emissions from brick kiln and rice parboiling facilities, and evening kerosene lamp and mosquito coil use. Mean background adjusted PM2.5 concentrations during cooking were lower during intervention at 71 μg/m3, versus 105 μg/m3 during baseline. Representative real-time personal PM2.5 concentration measurements supplemented with ambient PM2.5 measures and surveys will be a valuable tool to disentangle external sources of PM2.5, other indoor HAP sources, and fuel-sparing behaviors when assessing the HAP reduction due to intervention with LPG stoves.

Highlights

Introduction iationsGlobally, household air pollution (HAP), which includes hazardous substances such as carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM), and other environmental toxins, is the third leading health risk for mortality and the most important environmental health risk [1,2,3].The global mortality attributable to HAP is 4.3 million deaths or 7.7% of all deaths from acute respiratory infection, ischemic heart disease, and lung cancer [1]
This study aims to provide context on how we can directly target rural, pregnant women’s HAP exposure from traditional stove use to improve perinatal and neonatal outcomes
Our objectives were to assess the data quality and information gained from personal exposure monitoring, characterize the women’s exposure distributions pre- and postintervention, and quantify the reduction in HAP exposure that resulted from the clean cooking intervention

Summary

Introduction

Household air pollution (HAP), which includes hazardous substances such as carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM), and other environmental toxins, is the third leading health risk for mortality and the most important environmental health risk [1,2,3]. The global mortality attributable to HAP is 4.3 million deaths or 7.7% of all deaths from acute respiratory infection, ischemic heart disease, and lung cancer [1]. The poor-quality fuels, inefficient stoves with highly polluting combustion processes, and poorly functioning chimneys for good indoor ventilation, cause chronic exposure to elevated HAP concentrations. HAP contributes to a significant health burden on various populations, namely, low- and middle-income countries (LMICS) and women of reproductive age [5,6]. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

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