Indoor Air Pollution and Prevalence of Acute Respiratory Infection among Children in Rural Area of Bangladesh

This study was undertaken in the village Shalchura under Nalitabari Thana in Sherpur district where total of 145 study populations (Children) were selected by systematic random sampling. Prevalence of acute respiratory infection (ARI) was seen in 76.6% of study children during last one year most of whom were found to be in the age group 0-5 years. The difference in the prevalence of acute respiratory infection (ARI)  in 0-5 years group compared to prevalence of 6-18 years group were found to be statistically significant. Having a poor or lower medium class socio-economic background, majority of the family used mixture of biomass fuel like wood, crop-residue, cow-dung, saw dust, leaves etc. for cooking purpose. Association with disease symptoms to poor ventilation condition of the house and kitchen were also found to be significant. Another important factor for acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms was exposure to biomass fuel at daily cooking time. The disease symptoms tend to increase in 0-5 years group and the children who spent more time in cooking were more exposed to indoor air pollution as they have been showed more incidences of acute respiratory infection (ARI). It was revealed that due to smoking habit of family members and did that inside the living room, increased the occurrence of acute respiratory infection (ARI) among children.  It was also found that use of mosquito’s coils and poor living space increased the incidences of acute respiratory infection (ARI) among children. It was revealed that among the children with exposed (ARI) 41(28.8%) were liberated gases enter into their living room during cooking compared to 8 (23.5%) children in the unexposed (non ARI) group. Keywords: Indoor Air Pollution, Acute respiratory infection, Children, Sherpur, Banglades