Behavioural Change, Indoor Air Pollution and Child Respiratory Health in Developing Countries: A Review

Brendon R. Barnes
Additional contact information
Brendon R. Barnes: Psychology Department, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: Indoor air pollution caused by the indoor burning of solid biomass fuels has been associated with Acute Respiratory Infections such as pneumonia amongst children of less than five years of age. Behavioural change interventions have been identified as a potential strategy to reduce child indoor air pollution exposure, yet very little is known about the impact of behavioural change interventions to reduce indoor air pollution. Even less is known about how behaviour change theory has been incorporated into indoor air pollution behaviour change interventions. A review of published studies spanning 1983–2013 suggests that behavioural change strategies have the potential to reduce indoor air pollution exposure by 20%–98% in laboratory settings and 31%–94% in field settings. However, the evidence is: (1) based on studies that are methodologically weak; and (2) have little or no underlying theory. The paper concludes with a call for more rigorous studies to evaluate the role of behavioural change strategies (with or without improved technologies) to reduce indoor air pollution exposure in developing countries as well as interventions that draw more strongly on existing behavioural change theory and practice.

Keywords: behavioural change; indoor air pollution; household energy; theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/5/4607/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/5/4607/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:5:p:4607-4618:d:35503

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().