The effect of indoor air pollution on under-five child health in South Sudan.

Abstract

Background: Respiratory infections claim lives, especially the lives of children under the age of five, around the world. In South Sudan, respiratory infection has been identified as one of the three leading causes of death among children. In addition to other sources of indoor air pollution, cooking elsewhere inside the house but not in the kitchen is a major contributor to indoor air pollution. South Sudan has no access to clean energy for cooking and relies entirely on biomass. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of indoor air pollution, proxied by cooking location, on the occurrence of respiratory infection among children under five in South Sudan.

Method: The study used the 2010 South Sudan Household Health Survey 2 data, with 6,307 observations of under-five children. To address potential endogeneity, a Two-Stage Residual Inclusion was employed within the logistic regression framework. Additionally, a control function approach was adopted to account for unobserved heterogeneity, if any, in the model.

Results: Cooking elsewhere inside houses but not in the kitchens increases the probability of respiratory infection among children under the age of five in South Sudan. Control variables such as the roofing of the house, the gender of the under-five child, and the gender of the head of the household also influence the probability of respiratory infection among this age group.

Conclusion: Cooking elsewhere inside houses but not in the kitchens while using biomass for cooking has been dangerous for the health of children under the age of five. To save lives, especially those of children, cooking should be done either in a kitchen or outside of houses in the interim while moving towards clean energy for cooking.