| dc.description.abstract | ABSTRACT
Introduction: Indoor air pollution is a major public health concern worldwide causing many
health effects especially acute respiratory tract infections and lung cancer. In Uganda, indoor
air pollution is becoming a major public health concern due to a number of risk factors
especially in peri-urban households such as the use of biomass fuels within indoors and poor
ventilation among others. The objective of this study was to assess knowledge, attitudes, and
practices in peri-urban households towards indoor air pollution in Banda parish, Nakawa
Division, Kampala.
Methodology: The study was a household-based cross-sectional study involving the collection of
quantitative data. A semi-structured questionnaire and an observational checklist were used to
collect data from 120 households in Banda parish selected using systematic random
sampling. Data entry and analysis was carried out using EPI-DATA version 3.1 and SPSS
version 20 respectively. Data is presented in the form of pie charts, frequency tables, and graphs.
Results: Majority of the respondents 74.2% (89/120) claimed to know about indoor air
pollution, indoor air pollutants 85.4% (76/89) and sources of indoor air pollution 65.4%
(58/89) and 80.9 % (72/89) knew incomplete fuel combustion as a source of indoor air
pollution and 59.5% (53/89) got information about indoor air pollution while in schools.
Most of the respondents agreed that cooking indoors using biomass fuels is bad 49.2%,
opening windows is important 56.6% and congestion indoors is unhealthy 61.7%. A big
percentage of respondents 59.2% (71/120) had households with 2 to 4 rooms and 43.3%
(52/120) of the respondents did not open their windows daily because of insecurity 51.6 %
(32/52).Most of the respondents used electric bulbs 83 %(107/120) as their main source of
light, used charcoal 73% (98/114) for cooking and spent averagely 14 hours +/- 3 hours
inside the house per day. Most respondents 40% cooked from the veranda and majority of the
households 94.2% (113/120) had windows, although 82.3% (93/113) of the windows were
closed.
Conclusion and recommendation: Indoor air pollution in Banda parish is still a big problem
in most households. Therefore local leaders, health practitioners, and other stakeholders need
to work together to carry out health promotion and advocacy towards indoor air pollution
control including in schools | en_US |
