Cooking in Separate Buildings Linked to Lower Diarrhoea and Stunting Odds in Rwanda

A pooled cross-sectional analysis of two nationally representative Rwanda Demographic and Health Surveys included 15,348 children under five. Cooking in a separate building, compared with inside the house, was associated with lower odds of diarrhoea and stunting; the study did not measure pollutant exposure and cannot establish causation.

Separate-building cooking was associated with lower diarrhoea odds.
Stunting odds were also lower with separate-building cooking.
No association was found for ARI, fever or anaemia.
Cross-sectional data and no pollutant measurements limit interpretation.

Researchers pooled data from Rwanda Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2014–15 and 2019–20, covering 15,348 children under five. They assessed whether cooking inside the house, in a separate building or outdoors was associated with acute respiratory infection, fever, diarrhoea, stunting, anaemia and exploratory low birth weight. Survey-weighted logistic models adjusted for child, household and socioeconomic factors, including survey year. Solid biomass fuel use was reported by 99.8% of households in the first survey and 96.9% in the second.

Compared with cooking inside the house, cooking in a separate building was associated with lower odds of diarrhoea (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.73, 95% CI 0.64–0.84) and stunting (aOR 0.76, 95% CI 0.66–0.87); both associations remained significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Outdoor cooking estimates were not statistically significant in the primary analysis. Acute respiratory infection, fever, anaemia and low birth weight were not associated with cooking location.

The findings are observational and do not demonstrate that cooking location caused the differences in child health. The study did not measure household pollutant exposure, and the authors call for prospective and intervention studies to test the associations. Results may help inform further research on household cooking environments but do not establish a clinical intervention.

In practice

For children under five in Rwanda, this pooled cross-sectional analysis found lower adjusted odds of diarrhoea and stunting when cooking took place in a separate building rather than inside the house. It does not establish that changing cooking location would improve outcomes: the surveys were observational, cooking location was self-reported, and pollutant exposure was not measured. Outdoor cooking was not significantly associated with these outcomes in the primary analysis. The findings do not establish a clinical recommendation and require prospective or interventional confirmation.

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Source

BMC Public Health: Cooking location and child health outcomes in Rwanda: a pooled analysis of two demographic and health surveys ↗

This is an automated AI-condensed summary that has not yet been reviewed by an editor. Always consult the full item at the original source.