DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i12.037

Pages: 4976-4978

Increasing prevalence of chronic bronchitis in developing countries has been a significant challenge for public health in recent decades Globally, about 50% of all households and 90% of rural households use solid fuels (coal and biomass) as the main domestic source of energy, thus exposing approximately 50% of the world population—close to 3 billion people—to the harmful effects of these combustion products. Biomass and solid fuels are a major source of indoor air pollution, but in developing countries the health effects of indoor air pollution are poorly understood. In this study we examined the effect of cooking smoke produced by biomass and solid fuel combustion on the reported prevalence of chronic bronchitis among women in Odisha, India. A population based cross sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of chronic bronchitis among women and its association with household cooking behavior in 65 AWCS of Balianta Block, Khurdha District, Odisha comprising of 50,000 populations. 882 subjects aged between 15 to 49 years were interviewed using the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) English questionnaire. Descriptive statistics used for determining the prevalence of Chronic bronchitis among women and logistic regression used to establish the associations between Chronic bronchitis and household cooking practices were estimated. The current study shows that the prevalence of the chronic bronchitis among women was found to be 4.42 percent in the study area.