Did COVID-19 Change the Availability and Use of Clean Energy for Cooking? Evidence From Ghana.

A major part of Ghana's current household energy policy is focused on using a branded cylinder recirculation model (BCRM) to promote the safe use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for primary cooking. The implementation of the BCRM is expected to increase LPG adoption by households to the announced policy goal of 50% of the population by 2030. We investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of the BCRM, availability, and household use of cleaner fuels.

Poor early childhood growth is associated with impaired lung function: Evidence from a Ghanaian pregnancy cohort.

Objectives: Nearly 40% of African children under 5 are stunted. We leveraged the Ghana randomized air pollution and health study (GRAPHS) cohort to examine whether poorer growth was associated with worse childhood lung function.

Study Design: GRAPHS measured infant weight and length at birth and 3, 6, 9,12 months, and 4 years of age.

Characterizing sleep-wake patterns in mothers and children in an agrarian community: results from the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study.

Study Objectives: Several studies have examined sleep patterns in rural/indigenous communities, however little is known about sleep characteristics in women of reproductive age, and children within these populations. We investigate sleep-wake patterns in mothers and children (ages 3-5 years) leveraging data from the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS).

Methods: The GRAPHS cohort comprises of rural/agrarian communities in Ghana and collected multiday actigraphy in a subset of women and children to assess objective sleep-wake patterns.

Enhancing LPG Adoption in Ghana (ELAG): A Trial Testing Policy-Relevant Interventions to Increase Sustained Use of Clean Fuels.

Rural Ghanaians rely on solid biomass fuels for their cooking. National efforts to promote the Sustainable Development Goals include the Rural Liquefied Petroleum Gas Promotion Program (RLP), which freely distributes LPG stoves, but evaluations have demonstrated low sustained use among recipients. Our study objective was to assess if cheap and scalable add-on interventions could increase sustained use of LPG stoves under the RLP scheme.

Using longitudinal survey and sensor data to understand the social and ecological determinants of clean fuels use and discontinuance in rural Ghana.

Efforts to reduce the health and ecological burdens of household biomass combustion are underway in Ghana, principally by promoting clean cookstoves and fuels. Recent studies have focused on the sustained use of clean cookstoves, but sometimes household adopt a new cookstove and then end use of that stove. In this study, we introduce a novel framework for understanding and encouraging household transitions to cleaner cooking: clean fuel discontinuance.