ASHES Webinar - Combating Household Air Pollution with Clean Energy Solutions in Ghana --- April 20, 2022 --- ONLINE

Despite a growing economy and increasing urbanization, wood and charcoal remain Ghana’s primary source of energy for cooking, with over 80% of rural households and more than half of urban households relying primarily on these fuels. This translates into high exposures to household air pollution (HAP). According to Global Burden of Disease estimates, air pollution (both ambient and household) ranks as the second highest risk factor of death and disability in Ghana in 2019 (after malnutrition).

This webinar will showcase two threads of research that have been carried out by an international team led by investigators at Kintampo Health Research Centre and Columbia University. The first thread seeks to quantify the effects of household air pollution on child development. This work started with the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS), an RCT assessing the implications of clean stoves and fuels for birthweight and pneumonia in the first year of life. Ongoing studies have followed the children through age eight, and document a systematic pattern of harm from HAP exposure. The webinar will also highlight recent and ongoing studies aimed at understanding human behavior related to energy use, developing a stack of clean fuel/stove options, and transitioning entire communities towards clean alternatives. READ MORE