FRESH AIR Uganda 2010
Overview
Uganda is a low-income country that shares characteristics with other Sub-Saharan African countries. Only 12% of Uganda’s population has access to electricity – falling to 2-6% in rural areas. Biomass fuel is used extensively: wood fuel in rural areas and charcoal in urban. Rates of tobacco consumption are high amongst men. There is very low public awareness of the health dangers of smoke.
A range of FRESH AIR programme activities have taken place and others are now underway in Uganda. These include a prevalence study, training community health workers in rural Uganda to introduce stop smoking interventions in the context of a lung health awareness campaign and participation in the FRESH AIR Horizon 2020 project.
Prevalence study 2010
The main objective of the original FRESH AIR study sponsored by IPCRG, with funding from Mundipharma, in 2010 was to conduct a population-based, cross-sectional epidemiological study on the prevalence of COPD and its risk factors in resource-poor settings of a rural area in Uganda among 300 men and 300 women above the age of 30 years.
The four objectives:
- To educate and train local healthcare workers in the knowledge of COPD to ensure they are able to identify feasible options and then set priorities on the basis of current evidence
- To conduct a population-based epidemiological study on prevalence and severity of COPD, and its risk factors particularly tobacco smoking and indoor air pollution in resource-poor settings of a rural area
- To evaluate the burden of COPD in terms of its impact on quality of life, activity limitations, respiratory symptoms, and use of health care services in resource-poor settings of a rural area
- To measure the direct exposure to biomass smoke (PM25), 24-hour mean exposure, in the indoor environment of resource-poor settings of a rural area, combined with a qualitative assessment of the cooking tradition and behaviour of people with COPD.
