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Improving Indoor Air Quality for Poor Families: Controlled Experiments 2005-2006

Bangladesh, 2005 - 2006
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Reference ID
BGD_2005_IIAQPF_v01_M
DOI
https://doi.org/10.48529/2g2t-7k33
Producer(s)
Susmita Dasgupta, Mainul Huq, M. Khaliquzzaman and David Wheeler
Collection(s)
Development Research Microdata
Metadata
Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON
Study website
Created on
Apr 01, 2011
Last modified
Nov 20, 2013
Page views
32368
Downloads
2204
  • Study Description
  • Data Description
  • Documentation
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  • Identification
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Data Collection
  • Access policy
  • Disclaimer and copyrights
  • Metadata production

Identification

Survey ID Number
BGD_2005_IIAQPF_v01_M
Title
Improving Indoor Air Quality for Poor Families: Controlled Experiments 2005-2006
Country/Economy
Name Country code
Bangladesh BGD
Abstract
Indoor air pollution (IAP) is dangerously high for many poor families in Bangladesh. Concentrations of 300 ug/m3 for respirable airborne particulates (PM10) or greater are common in Bangladeshi households, implying widespread exposure to a serious health hazard.

To promote a better understanding of IAP, in 2003, the World Bank’s research department has investigated the IAP in Bangladesh using the latest air monitoring technology and a national household survey (IAP Research, Phase I). The analysis of determinants of IAP verifies the IAP reducing potential of clean fuels (kerosene, natural gas, etc.), but the nationwide survey results revealed: Poor households in Bangladesh (like in other parts of Asia and Latin America) almost always use “dirty” biomass fuels, because in most rural areas, clean fuels are not available at all. Even where a clean fuel is available, poor households prefer and use “dirty” fuels because the relative price of the “clean” fuel is simply too high. Improved stoves for biomass combustion could help but, as other studies in Asia and Latin America have also discovered, the World Bank survey found almost no adoption of improved stoves despite widespread promotional efforts in Bangladesh. Households report non-adoption for a variety of reasons, including capital and maintenance costs, inconvenience, and incompatibility with food preparation traditions. Thus, neither clean fuels nor improved stoves offer strong prospects for reducing IAP in the rural area in near future.

Fortunately, the World Bank study has identified another option that looks much more promising. In Bangladesh, common variations in certain household characteristics -- construction materials, space configurations, cooking locations and use of doors and windows -- have produced large differences in IAP exposure. As a result, some poor households using “dirty” fuels enjoy indoor air quality normally associated with clean fuels, while others suffer from pollution levels ten times the international safe standard. Since many poor households already have some of the relevant characteristics, they are clearly acceptable and affordable in Bangladesh. The IAP-Phase I research, therefore, has tentatively concluded that a national “clean household” promotion program, combined with effective public education on the associated health benefits, could reduce IAP exposure to much safer levels for many poor families.

Although the general results are quite robust, the first-round research has only been able to consider a subset of feasible measures that might yield significant benefits in this context. Before proposing a national “clean household” program to policy makers, one needs to establish a broader and more rigorously-confirmed set of clean characteristics as well as to assess their cost effectiveness in different regions of Bangladesh. Current research in Bangladesh has conducted a program of direct, controlled experimentation and cost-effectiveness analysis that will provide the needed evidence. The experimentation of the research is confined to structural arrangements(building materials, cooking locations, window/ door configurations etc.) that are already common among poor households in Bangladesh.

The World Bank study has used two types of equipment: real-time monitors that record PM10 at 2-minute intervals, and air samplers that measure 24-hour average PM10 concentrations.

1. The real-time monitoring instrument is the Thermo Electric Personal DataRAM (pDR-1000). The pDR-1000 uses a light scattering photometer (nephelometer) to measure airborne particle concentrations. The operative principle is real-time measurement of light scattered by aerosols, integrated over as wide a range of angles as possible. At each location, the instrument operated continuously, without intervention, for a 24-hour period to record PM10 concentrations at 2-minute intervals.

2. The other instrument used in the study is the Airmetrics MiniVol Portable Air Sampler (Airmetrics, 2004), a more conventional device that samples ambient air for 24 hours. While the MiniVol is not a reference method sampler, it gives results that closely approximate data from U.S. Federal Reference Method samplers. The MiniVols were programmed to draw air at 5 liters/minute through PM10 particle size separators (impactors) and then through filters. The particles were caught on the filters, and the filters were weighed pre- and post exposure with a microbalance.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators
Name Affiliation
Susmita Dasgupta, Mainul Huq, M. Khaliquzzaman and David Wheeler World Bank

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection
Start End
2005 2006
Data Collection Mode
Other [oth]

Access policy

Citation requirements
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download

Example:

Susmita Dasgupta et al., World Bank. Improving Indoor Air Quality for Poor Families: Controlled Experiments in Bangladesh (IIAQPF) 2005-2006. Ref. BGD_2005_IIAQPF_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from www.microdata.worldbank.org on [date].

Disclaimer and copyrights

Disclaimer
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

Metadata production

DDI Document ID
DDI_BGD_2005_IIAQPF_v01_M
Date of Metadata Production
2011-02
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