Clinical trial NCT03617952: P3 Ghana Cookstove Study
Official title: Prices, Peers, and Perceptions: Field Experiments on Technology Adoption in the Context of Improved Cookstoves
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Household Air Pollution
Behavior, Social
Keywords: Cookstoves
Household Air Pollution
Behavior Change
Global Health
Lead sponsor: University of Colorado, Denver
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Colorado, Boulder
name: North Carolina State University
name: Navrongo Health Research Centre, Ghana
name: U.S. National Science Foundation
name: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
First posted: 2018-08-07
Enrollment: 300
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 55
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Background:

Despite their potential health and social benefits, adoption and use of improved cookstoves has been low throughout much of the world. Explanations for low adoption rates of these technologies include prices that are not affordable for the target populations, limited opportunities for households to learn about cookstoves through peers, and perceptions that these technologies are not appropriate for local cooking needs. The P3 project employs a novel experimental design to explore each of these factors and their interactive effects on cookstove demand, adoption, use and exposure outcomes.

Methods:

The P3 study is being conducted in the Kassena-Nankana Districts of Northern Ghana. Leveraging an earlier improved cookstove study that was conducted in this area, the central design of the P3 biomass stove experiment involves offering stoves at randomly varying prices to peers and non-peers of households that had previously received stoves for free. Using household surveys, electronic stove use monitors, and low-cost, portable monitoring equipment, we measure how prices and peers' experience affect perceptions of stove quality, the decision to purchase a stove, use of improved and traditional stoves over time, and personal exposure to air pollutants from the stoves.

Discussion:

The challenges that public health and development communities have faced in spreading adoption of potentially welfare-enhancing technologies, like improved cookstoves, have highlighted the need for interdisciplinary, multisectoral approaches. The design of the P3 project draws on economic theory, public health practice, engineering, and environmental sciences, to more fully grasp the drivers and barriers to expanding access to and uptake of cleaner stoves. Our partnership between academic institutions, in the US and Ghana, and a local environmental non-governmental organization creates unique opportunities to disseminate and scale up lessons learned.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Classified as "rural"
* Uses biofuel as main cooking fuel source
* Has women in household aged 18-55 and at least one child under five

Exclusion Criteria:

* Clusters that are close to the S1 clusters, creating a set of clusters far enough from the original R group that will create the S2 cluster.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Stove Purchases | Number of households that order stoves and complete payments
timeFrame: up to 13 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Cooking Behaviors | Household use of both traditional and improved cookstoves over time
timeFrame: up to 13 months
measure: Perceptions of Stove Quality | Smoke production, efficiency, ease of use, quality of food, etc.
timeFrame: up to 13 months
measure: Exposure to CO and PM 2.5
timeFrame: up to 13 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Unviersity of Colorado, Aurora
name: Katherine L Dickinson, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Dickinson KL, Dalaba M, Brown ZS, Alirigia R, Coffey ER, Mesenbring E, Achazanaga M, Agao D, Ali M, Kanyomse E, Awaregya J, Adagenera CA, Aburiya JBA, Gubilla B, Oduro AR, Hannigan MP. Prices, peers, and perceptions (P3): study protocol for improved biomass cookstove project in northern Ghana. BMC Public Health. 2018 Oct 29;18(1):1209. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-6116-z.