The aim of the project is to change cooking habits in rural household in Northern Ethiopia, in order to reduce exposure to biomass fumes thus reducing morbidity and mortality from exposure. So far we have run a pilot project designed at evaluating attitudes, knowledge and willingness to change of the target population.
Contact Information
Our Focus
We are targeting traditional and rural households around Gondar, one of the largest cities in Ethiopia, located around 750 km North of the capital.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
We have found that our target population has personal/traditional beliefs that sometimes make them attached to traditional methods of cooking. However we have found that with education and explanation, a majoprity of the people would be willing to change to less harmful cooking methods.
No input
Another team working within the Leicester Gondar link has developed a method of measuring exposure by measuring macrophage alveolar loading of biomass fumes. It was found to be much higher in Ethiopia than in the UK.
Relevant Publications or Studies
Kulkarni NS, Prudon B, Panditi SL, Abebe Y, Grigg J., "Carbon Loading of Alveolar Macrophages in Adults and Children Exposed to Biomass Smoke Particles", Sci Total Environ. 2005 Jun 1;345(1-3):23-30. Epub 2004 Dec 21.
Our Contribution to the Partnership
We would be interested in sharing experiences and hearing from other teams who have worked on similar projects. We are happy to share our data collection methods and questionnaire development tools.
