Correlates of Ghanaian households’ use of clean cooking fuels: insight from the 2014 demographic and health surveys

Abstract Background: Globally, about 2.9 billion persons, the majority of whom are from low and middle-income countries, depend on poorly combusted biomass and coal for cooking and heating. Using poorly combusted fuels have negative implication on people’s health and quality of life. In Ghana, only about two out of ten households use clean fuels for cooking. Predictive models of associated factors of clean cooking fuels in Ghana are rare.Objective: The study assessed the factors that influence Ghanaian households’ use of clean fuels. In this paper, we define electricity, LPG, and natural gas as clean cooking fuels, and kerosene, coal, lignite, charcoal, wood, straw/shrubs/grass, and agricultural crop as dirty cooking fuels.Methods: The study used the data of the cross-sectional demographic and health surveys conducted in 2014. Logistic regression was used to perform bivariate and multivariable analysis. We adjusted for the study designed and the household sampling weights.Results: We found that the following factors were associated with a higher odd of a Ghanaian household to use clean fuels for cooking: rich households, male-headed households, households’ headed by persons between 24years and 55 years, households with heads that were currently married or never married, households with heads that have attained at least a primary level education, households with less than eight members, households with at least two women, and households in Western, Central, Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Upper East region. We further found that place of residence interacted with the relationship between study covariates and the uptake of clean cooking fuels.Conclusion: In view of these findings, we recommend: a national effort to subsidize and make LPG and the stoves that burn it affordable; education on efficient and sustainable consumption must be intensified and incorporated in the basic school’s curriculum to ensure the future generation are more health-conscious; creation of multiple LPG refilling outlets in all the regions in Ghana.