Knowledge of Health Hazards and Perception of Prevention Amongst Females Exposed to Biomass Fuel and Gas/Electricity Fuel in A District of Bangladesh. AKMMC J 2013; 4(1): 20-24.
MA Alim, et al.
A crosssectional study was designed and conducted from March to June 2007, in Madla, a rural area,and in Thanthania, an urban area, under Bogra District of Bangladesh, to see and compare theprevalence of respiratory disease among female biomass fuel users and gas/electricity fuel users.A total of 103 females from the rural households meeting the defined enrollment criteria forbiomass fuel group were selected purposively as cases, while 101 females from the urbanhouseholds meeting the defined eligibility criteria for controls were included in gas/electricityfuel group. The participants were interviewed on a semi-structured questionnaire. Nearly 70% ofthe biomass fuel users used wood for the daily cooking and heating purposes, 64% leaves,31.1% cow dung, crop residue 30.1% and 7.8% saw-dust.
The biomass group exhibited asignificantly higher frequency of respiratory problem (16.5%) compared to their gas/electricitycounterpart (5%). The findings revealed that, 67.5% of the biomass group complained of eyeproblem followed by cold 36.1%, headache 33.8%, cough 13.9% and difficulty in breathing11.1%. The respondents of gas/electricity group also complained about same health hazards butthey were less aware of the problems. Both the group had fairly comparable level of perceptionof prevention of hazards of biomass fuel (p>0.05), except that a significantly higher proportionof biomass group (12.2%) told that the problem could be avoided by using kerosene stovecompared to the gas/electricity group (1.2%)
