Implementation Science to Accelerate Clean Cooking for Public Health

JOSHUA ROSENTHAL; KALPANA BALAKRISHNAN; NIGEL BRUCE; ADOLFO RUBINSTEIN

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES

US DEPT HEALTH HUMAN SCIENCES PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCE

Lugar: Research Triangle Park, NC. USA; Año: 2017

0091-6765

Summary: Clean cooking has emerged as a major concern for globalhealth and development because of the enormous burden of diseasecaused by traditional cookstoves and fires. The World HealthOrganization has developed new indoor air quality guidelines that fewhomes will be able to achieve without replacing traditional methodswith modern clean cooking technologies, including fuels and stoves.However, decades of experience with improved stove programs indicatethat the challenge of modernizing cooking in impoverished communitiesincludes a complex, multi-sectoral set of problems that requireimplementation research. The National Institutes of Health, in partnershipwith several government agencies and the Global Alliance forClean Cookstoves, has launched the Clean Cooking ImplementationScience Network that aims to address this issue. In this article, ourfocus is on building a knowledge base to accelerate scale-up and sustaineduse of the cleanest technologies in low- and middle-incomecountries. Implementation science provides a variety of analytical andplanning tools to enhance effectiveness of clinical and public healthinterventions. These tools are being integrated with a growing body ofknowledge and new research projects to yield new methods, consensustools, and an evidence base to accelerate improvements in healthpromisedby the renewed agenda of clean cooking.