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Early Adoption of an Improved Household Energy System in Urban Rwanda

EcoHealth volume 16, pages 7–20 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Cooking with solid fuels and inefficient cookstoves has adverse consequences for health, environment, and human well-being. Despite the promise of improved cookstoves to reduce these impacts, adoption rates are relatively low. Using a 2-wave sample of 144 households from the baseline and first midline of an ongoing 4-year randomized controlled trial in Rwanda, we analyze the drivers and associations of early adoption of a household energy intervention marketed by a private sector firm. Households sign an annual contract to purchase sustainably produced biomass pellets and lease a fan micro-gasification cookstove with verified emissions reductions in laboratory settings. Using difference-in-differences and fixed effects estimation techniques, we examine the association between take-up of the improved cooking system and household fuel expenditures, health outcomes, and time use for primary cooks. Thirty percent of households adopted the pellet and improved cookstove system. Adopting households had more assets, lower per capita total expenditures and cooking fuel expenditures, and higher per capita hygiene expenditures. Households with married household heads and female cooks were significantly more likely to adopt. Adjusting for confounders, we find significant reduction in primary cooks’ systolic blood pressure, self-reported prevalence of shortness of breath, an indicator of respiratory illness, time spent cooking, and household expenditures on charcoal. Our findings have implications for marketing of future clean fuel and improved cookstove programs in urban settings or where stoves and fuel are purchased. Analysis of follow-up surveys will allow for estimation of long-term impacts of adoption of interventions involving pellets and fan micro-gasification cookstoves.

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Figure 1

Notes

  1. Time spent on various activities (domestic chores, agriculture/livestock/fisheries and other) over the 7 days prior to the survey.

  2. A household was excluded from the sample if (a) the main respondent and/or the primary cook refused; (b) the primary cook was less than 15 years old; (c) no cooking was done in the household; (d) the household was currently using or had previously used an improved stove such as the Philips gasifying stove; (e) a sampled household was in the same plot as another that has already been surveyed; and (f) the village chief, key people in the village (such as community health worker) or neighbors had no information about the household sampled. If there was a new household residing in the same plot as the sampled household, and the original inhabitants listed in the sampling frame had moved to a different location, the survey was conducted with the new household.

  3. Households were contacted by arranging appointments and making home visits to demonstrate the ICS and biomass pellets combination.

  4. Personal and area exposure monitoring of carbon monoxide, particulate matter 2.5, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was conducted at baseline, midline 1, and midline 2, and is planned for endline for the sub-sample of 180 households.

  5. Attritor households are renters and households with ties to other regions of Rwanda or the Democratic Republic of Congo (i.e., more likely to move out of the study area), and households with several people engaged in daytime employment (i.e., more likely to be difficult to locate or schedule an interview with).

  6. The following were the durable goods/assets considered in this analysis: living room suite, refrigerator, freezer, radio, TV set, satellite dish, cooker, video/DVD player, computer and accessories, music system, electric fan, air-conditioner, sewing machine, bed, cupboard/bookcase, table-chair, car, motorcycle (for home use only) and bicycle (for home use only). Our asset variable is a simple count of assets each household owns.

  7. We took three consecutive measurements of primary cooks’ blood pressure after the cook had been at rest for at least 20 min. We used the Omron 5 Series blood pressure monitor which has been validated for measurement of blood pressure according to European standards (Topouchian et al. 2011). Enumerators received focused training on how to use electronic blood pressure measurement instruments. For our analysis, we use the average of the three measurements.

  8. We conducted the Breusch-Pagan and Hausman tests to test for differences between the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) model, and report results where coefficients are significantly different.

  9. Anecdotal evidence gathered from the firm’s customer service representatives suggest that the decision to change from the Philips stove to the Mimi Moto affected take-up of the household energy system.

  10. These expenditure items included broom/brush, sponge, shoe brush and polish, disinfectant and cleaners, laundry services, rubbish collection services, and wages for household domestic help.

  11. The Breusch-Pagan and Hausman tests between pooled OLS and RE, and pooled OLS and FE, respectively, for blood pressure indicate that the pooled OLS model is inappropriate. The Hausman test indicates significant differences between FE and RE estimates only for night phlegm and shortness of breath, suggesting unobserved heterogeneity.

  12. While there were significant differences between the pooled OLS, and FE and RE estimates, the FE and RE estimates were not significantly different for charcoal expenditures.

  13. The Breusch-Pagan and Hausman tests between pooled OLS and RE, and pooled OLS and FE, respectively, for time spent in all activities except labor and other activities, show significant differences. Among all activities, the Hausman test indicates significant differences between FE and RE estimates for time spent in cooking and childcare activities.

  14. Bagasse is the dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of juice from sugar cane, it is commonly used as fuel for electricity generators.

  15. Our study also collected objective data on stove use using temperature loggers (stove use monitoring system-SUMS). Analysis from the same will be published separately.

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Acknowledgements

This impact evaluation is led and executed by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States (UNC-CH) in collaboration with The Access Project (Baseline) and Laterite Africa (Midline 1 and onward). The first midline survey was funded by the United Nations Foundation/Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (UNF-15- 708: Evaluating Sustained Adoption of Inyenyeri’s Improved Stove and Fuel Initiative in Rwanda). The project was funded as part of a joint effort by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and the USAID Translating Research into Action Project (TRAction). The baseline, endline, and all other midline surveys are funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01ES023861: The Health and Poverty Effects of a Large-scale Cookstove Initiative in Rwanda). We are grateful to the Carolina Population Center (P2C HD050924) at UNC-CH for general support. This research has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at UNC-CH, the Rwanda National Ethics Committee, and the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda.

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Affiliations

  1. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Pamela Jagger

  2. Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Pamela Jagger & Sudhanshu Handa

  3. Department of Geography, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Pamela Jagger

  4. Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Ipsita Das

  5. Department of Public Policy, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Sudhanshu Handa

  6. Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Leena A. Nylander-French

  7. Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Karin B. Yeatts

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  1. Pamela Jagger
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  2. Ipsita Das
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Correspondence to Pamela Jagger.

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Jagger, P., Das, I., Handa, S. et al. Early Adoption of an Improved Household Energy System in Urban Rwanda. EcoHealth 16, 7–20 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1391-9

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Keywords

  • Africa
  • Biomass
  • Charcoal
  • Cookstoves
  • Household air pollution