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

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.

Protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial of LPG cookstoves compared to usual cooking practices to reduce perinatal mortality and morbidity in rural Bangladesh called Poriborton: the CHANge trial

“…The findings from this study had multiple outcomes that identified issues and improved processes for conducting our trial: firstly, the development of a locally appropriate LPG cylinder supply chain in the study area, and secondly, the development of content relevant for our initial behaviour change communication such as benefits of clean cooking, practical suggestions for modifying cooking behaviours, and the important role of mothers-in-law and husbands in decision-making about cooking and fuel practices [ 30 ]. Lastly, we confirmed culturally appropriate approaches for measuring personal exposure to household air pollution and produced representative data that confirmed the LPG intervention did reduce exposure to cooking fuel emissions [ 31 ].…”

The dynamic relationship among economic development, air pollution, and health production in China: the DNSBM efficiency model

“…Brook et al (2010) further demonstrated that the risk of non-accidental mortality rises with chronic PM2.5 exposure. At the same time, maternity and infants are more vulnerable to air pollution compared to other age groups (Hackley et al, 2007;Thornburg et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2023). Owili et al (2017) made a similar observation regarding the significant influence of PM2.5 on maternal mortality.…”

Outdoor Air Pollution and Pregnancy Loss: a Review of Recent Literature

“…As wearable technologies become more accessible, they can be used for personal monitoring and/or supplementing existing exposure assessment strategies. To date, although no studies on pregnancy loss utilize personal monitoring, studies on other health outcomes have successfully implemented this approach [48,[50][51][52][53][54]. Given pregnancy is a relatively short window of opportunity, this approach is potentially feasible and allows prospective capturing of small variation in timing, pattern, and duration of exposures, which can help explore specific windows of susceptibility.…”