An interventional study of Improved Cookstoves in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Asthma, sponsored by Boston College. Active, not recruiting. Open to female participants aged 18 Years to 80 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-06-13.
Sponsored by Boston College · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
Household air pollution (HAP) is a leading risk factor for global burden of disease. Resource-constrained communities of the world especially women and children are significantly impacted by this challenge. To address household air pollution, cleaner and more efficient improved cookstoves (ICS) have been disseminated to low resource communities. Although there has been initial uptake of these stoves, sustained use has been inconsistent adding to the challenge of household air pollution. There is limited understanding at the intersections of social, ecological, and technical determinants of sustained use of ICS, and how is sustained use of ICS associated with exposure and health outcomes in poor communities.
The overarching goal of this exploratory study is to initiate a comprehensive research program that will facilitate the use of ICS and investigate whether they render significant health benefits among rural Indian households.
The investigators installed ICS (model: Eco-Chulla XXL) in select households that primarily use biomass for cooking, and evaluate the intervention based on three specific aims:
In this study, the investigators undertake a 12-month cluster randomized trial in 96 households in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka states of India. The investigators enrolled women (primary cook) and one child (age 8-15) in each of these 96 households. The investigators compare the effect of traditional wood burning stoves (the control condition) to that of improved wood burning stoves on the respiratory health of women and children, and also undertake community-based system dynamics modeling to delineate the feedback mechanisms involved in sustained use or abandonment of improved cookstoves. The study and research program are aligned with recent international attention to explore determinants impacting the sustained use of cleaner cooking systems in poor communities of the world. Thus, in achieving the aims of this R21, the investigators will then have: 1) necessary preliminary data; 2) pre-emptive strategies for most of these unanticipated but preventable challenges. The investigators will leverage these insights to proceed with a larger scale intervention: 1) to examine the effect of sustained use of cleaner cooking systems and respiratory health outcomes in women and children due to reduced HAP in rural India; 2) to explore barriers and enablers of implementation of cleaner cooking systems in multiple resource poor settings. Numerous studies have shown that sustained and exclusive use of cleaner cooking systems irrespective of their types have been a challenge. Lukewarm sustenance of cleaner cooking systems in poor households stems from a limited understanding on the grounds of social, technical, economic, and ecological intersections of energy security. The investigators intend to address this gap by using a trans-disciplinary approach to contribute to our understanding of factors that influence the implementation of cleaner cooking systems for rural poor in India.
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This study's enrollment of 208 is above the median of 66 across 1,837 interventional studies indexed under Lung Diseases, Obstructive.
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Exclusion criteria:
The intervention arm included households which received improved cookstoves
Behavioral: Improved Cookstoves
The control group included households, which did not receive improved cookstoves, and cooked in their usual traditional cookstoves.
Villages were randomized to have participating households assigned to either a traditional biomass burning cookstove or to an improved cookstove. Once the participating villages had been selected, the investigators used their list of eligible households within each village to randomly order these households. Within each village, the investigators then approached the eligible households in the order that had been randomly chosen and continued that process until four households within each village had agreed to participate. The selection of villages and households preceded randomization and was pursued with the clear understanding that group assignment would be random, and that participation reflected a willingness to be randomized to either study group.
Forced Expiratory Volume 1 (FEV1)
The investigators used Koko spirometer to measure the forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1).
Time frame: 12 months
No study locations are listed for this record.
Plan to share: No
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Jun 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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