Household air pollution, respiratory symptoms, rural, urban, Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR

Abstract

The objective of this cross-sectional study was to investigate whether household air pollution source from house characteristic, practice and other considerably possible factors are associated with risk of respiratory symptoms among people living in rural and urban area of Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR. Of 422 households as total were studied, including 770 adult respondents (male and female) and 243 children less than 15 years. Data were collected from mid-February to March 2012, using structured questionnaire. Bivariate analysis and multivariate analysis were performed in this study. In descriptive findings, the study found that people in rural area, both adult and children, are more vulnerable than people in urban according to the percentage of illnesses and many other conditions. In analytical findings, positive associations were found in some factors of household characteristic, household practice, personal practice, socio-demographic conditions and health background with each respiratory symptom in both adult and child. However these findings do not prove the causality, further investigations are still necessary. Regarding the results, it should be recommended for the health sector, or policy maker to consider and find out further protection in people or by using some kind of solving intervention, such as giving knowledge, campaign on house visiting of health personnel, household-environmental cleaning, etc.