Indoor air pollution due to cooking fuel smoke in Sri Lanka and women’s perspectives

Clinical Research Results Abstract Research Idea Abstract The researchers and policymakers should have a circumstantial understanding of the behaviour of women primary cooks, their cultural beliefs and social taboos in order to plan successful interventions to reduce indoor air pollution due to biomass fuel smoke. The aim of the study is to explore the current cooking practices of women using biomass fuel and their perception of the health problems related to exposure to biomass fuel smoke. A descriptive qualitative study will be carried out among the adult women primary cooks who use biomass fuel as the primary cooking fuel. They will be selected from a list (n=363) by purposeful sampling to represent a wide range of distribution across age, ethnicity, level of education, employment status and family income. The data collection will be done by in-depth interviews. The in-depth interview guide was prepared based on the researcher’s prior knowledge, information collected at the previous study and intensive and extensive literature review. It contains broad questions on the use of biomass fuel, their feelings while using biomass fuel, difficulties they face, impact on health and their health-seeking behaviour which will be followed up using probes for further clarification. The interviews will be conducted in households and will be audio-recorded. About 12-15 interviews will be carried out until the saturation is reached by making a qualitative judgment using the saturation grid. All audio records will be transcribed verbatim to generate initial codes and will be analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The qualitative data generated by this study will reflect the cultural beliefs and social taboos of women using biomass fuel that help the researchers and policymakers to plan more compliant clean cookstove technologies or other interventions to combat indoor air pollution due to biomass fuel smoke in Sri Lanka. Service Development & Evaluation Abstract Declaration of Interest Funding: University Research Grants of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka (ASP/01/RE/MED/2017/35) References and Clinical Trial Registry Information