AWARENESS OF WOMEN ABOUT CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
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Date
2017-07
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AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
The present study on “Awareness of women about causes and effects of indoor air pollution” was undertaken with the following objectives: (i) To assess the awareness level of women about causes and health hazards of indoor air pollution. (ii) To study the role played by housewives in minimising indoor air pollution at household level. A survey was carried out in Jorhat town of Assam. A multistage purposive cum random sampling method was adopted for the purpose of the study. Municipality area of Jorhat was divided into five parts and from each part one ward was selected randomly and 3 per cent of the total household from each ward were randomly selected to constitute a total sample size of 120. Personal interview method was used for data collection. The findings of the personal and socio-economic characteristics showed that most of the respondents belonged to the age group of 25-35 years and majority of the respondents belonged to nuclear family with family size less than 5. Majority of the respondents were found to be graduates and were service holders. The monthly family income of majority of the respondents ranged from Rupees 10,000 to Rupees 30,000. The findings of the awareness level of women about causes of indoor air pollution showed that 49 per cent of the respondents had high level of awareness and 38 percent had low level of awareness and 13 per cent had medium level of awareness. Of all the various causes of indoor air pollution viz., the common sources, sources prevalent inside the kitchen, biological pollutants causing IAP, sources of VOCs and sources of POPs; the common sources was ranked first among all the other causes of IAP as per the respondents’ awareness. Biological pollutants ranked second, followed by sources inside the kitchen, sources of VOCs and sources of POPs. Findings of awareness level of women about health hazards of indoor air pollution revealed that 46 per cent of the respondents had high level of awareness, 36 per cent had low level of awareness and 18 per cent had medium level of awareness about health hazards of indoor air pollution. The respondents were mostly aware about lung cancer caused by exposure to cigarette smoke and was ranked first among other health hazards of indoor air pollution. Overall distribution about awareness of IAP consisting of both causes and health hazards revealed that 49 per cent had high level of awareness, 43 per cent had low level of awareness and 8 per cent had medium level of awareness. Another findings showed that the role performance of majority of the respondents in minimizing indoor air pollution were good (48.33%) with cleaning of house regularly being the most performed role; 43.33 per cent of the respondents had poor role performance, and encouraging others to switch on exhaust fans in the bathroom/toilet when being used was the least performed role. It was found that educational qualification of the respondents had some association with their awareness level about IAP but not with their role performance in minimizing IAP. Age, income and occupation were found to have no association with both awareness level and role performance. However, awareness level of the respondents about indoor air pollution was found to have some influence on the role performance of women in minimizing indoor air pollution.