Every year, according to the World Health Organization, more than three million people die and three billion people are at risk worldwide because of indoor air pollution from cooking and heating with open fires and leaky stoves burning biomass and coal. Judy Heiderscheidt has dedicated the last five years to researching the health effects of introducing cleaner burning cookstoves in Central America’s developing communities in an effort to reduce death and illness from indoor air pollution.
“Most people cooking over an open fire already live in unhealthy conditions,” said Heiderscheidt, a Colorado State University retiree and current PhD student in environmental health, specializing in epidemiology. “Some families are fortunate to have a separate kitchen, but many live in one-room huts. The kitchen is on one side of the room and the bedroom is a single cot in the corner shared by eight family members. By living in such close quarters with an open fire, families face serious health risks from indoor air pollution.”
In 2008, Heiderscheidt and her husband, Bill Marquardt, accompanied a group of CSU students to Nicaragua to measure the effects of cookstove emissions on blood pressure and lung function. The study compared the health of a single group of women cooking over an open fire and later with the new, energy-efficient stove.
The research suggested that new cookstoves improved air quality and health in households that chose to adopt them. However, many of the women in the study did not fully adopt the new stove. With this information, Heiderscheidt became interested in increasing cookstove adoption in other developing communities. She went back to school to continue cookstove research and outreach, and applied for funding from the American Heart Association to research the cardiovascular effects of cooking over an open fire.
After receiving $50,000 over two years from AHA, Heiderscheidt partnered with Stove Team International, a non-profit organization based in Eugene, Ore., and selected Copan Ruinas, Honduras, as her research destination.
“The Honduras Project is a follow-up study to the Nicaragua Project,” Heiderscheidt said. “We yielded useful results from the first study, but this new study has more to offer. Instead of measuring blood pressure at a single point in the day, we have an ambulatory monitor that gives us an average blood pressure from multiples readings throughout the day. Instead of one group of women, we have three groups and the benefit of comparing results to a control group.”
Selecting Honduras offered a unique opportunity.
“The stove manufacturing company in Honduras, E’-Copan, hired a woman to visit households with new stoves and teach women how to use them,” Heiderscheidt said. “I think the reason many women in Nicaragua didn’t fully adopt the new cookstove was because there was minimal education and follow-up for the stoves. E’-Copan wants to make sure the women know how to use the stove and feel comfortable using it. It helps them fully adapt to the new stove and rid their home of pollution.”
In November, Heiderscheidt and Marquardt traveled to Honduras to find three appropriate research communities. The couple organized with community leaders to address indoor air pollution issues and encourage people to volunteer for the study.
Beginning in January, Heiderscheidt and her husband conducted eight weeks of research with a team of four alumni from the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences: Erin McGuinn (BS 2008), Bevin Luna (MS 2009), Grant Quiller (BS 2011), and Stacy Marshall (BS 2012).
From the three communities, 122 women volunteered for the study. To qualify, a woman had to be between the ages 25 and 70, not pregnant, and currently cooking over an open fire. Each volunteer had to go through extensive questionnaires, have pollution monitors in their homes and wear two monitors on their person to measure smoke particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Each woman also wore an ambulatory blood pressure cuff for 24 hours and provided blood spots from a finger prick to test for systemic inflammation.
“Getting volunteers was difficult at first because the women were embarrassed to be seen with the monitors and blood pressure cuff. We left one home, only to return a while later and find the woman with three T-shirts on trying to cover up the monitors,” Heiderscheidt said. “We provided incentives for women to participate. We gave them a pound each of Manteca (cooking oil), beans, rice, and sugar and three packets of coffee after completing the 24-hour measurement period. As more women volunteered, the less embarrassed they were to be seen covered in our research equipment.”
After data collection was complete, 91 women in two communities received new cookstoves. The third community serves as the control community and will receive cookstoves after blood pressure, systemic inflammation, and air pollution data is examined from all three communities at the end of the study.
Though cardiovascular effects remain the research focus, Heiderscheidt notes another variable in her research. One of the two communities that received the cookstoves will receive extensive monthly training on its uses. The other community will still receive visits from E’-Copan, but the visits will not be as instructionally in-depth.
“We’re asking a lot of women in these communities to change their cooking habits,” Heiderscheidt said. “It will be interesting to see how the women in these communities adapt throughout the year. I know that when we left, some women had completely wiped out their entire open-fire set-up and replaced it with the new stove, while other women were gradually beginning to use the new stove for some tasks.”
Heiderscheidt will maintain contact with E’-Copan, receiving monthly data and research reports. She will return in July to follow up with the communities. In January 2014, Heiderscheidt and her team will end the study with all three communities by collecting final data and delivering the long-awaited cookstoves to the volunteers in the third community.
In 2011, Heiderscheidt received the Environmental Health Outstanding Graduate Student Award for her cookstove research and outreach in developing communities. For inquiries about the project, or if you would like to make a donation, visit Honduras Cookstove Project.