The study sets out to estimate the proportion of Ghanaian households currently using CF&HPFs and delineate factors that account for their use. The findings reveal that less than a third of Ghanaian households were using CF&HPFs for cooking. The households’ use of CF&HPFs were also found to be positively associated with certain household head demographic factors, household characteristics, and place and region of residence.
To begin with, male-headed households were more likely to use CF&HPFs for cooking compared to female-headed households. Men have more economic advantage in most Ghanaian communities. This advantage position of men enables them to purchase CF&HPFs that are generally considered expensive in Ghana. Even though some studies present similar results, others present contrary findings. For example, one study conducted in South Asia found that female-headed households were more likely to use CF&HPFs fuels [18, 19]. The authors mentioned the ability of CF&HPFs to reduce the drudgery associated with cooking as a major influential factor for its adoption and use by female-head households.
Again, households headed by persons between 24 years and 55 years were observed to more likely to use CF&HPFs. Conventionally, persons within this age group belong to the active working-age population, granting them easier access to economic opportunities. Therefore, these individuals are more likely to afford the usage of CF&HPFs. Additionally, persons above 55 years may find it difficult and inconvenient to adopt CF&HPFs for cooking because they perhaps belonged to a generation that predominantly relied on solid fuels for cooking [20]. Other scholars also explain that the tendency to experiment and to adopt efficient modern technologies and behaviour may be a contributing factor for the adoptions and use of CF&HPFs among the younger generation [21].
Furthermore, we found that households with currently married or never-married individuals were more likely to use CF&HPFs. In today’s Ghana, it is trendy for couples to rely on LPG and electricity for cooking. Also, anecdotal evidence suggests that couples may be more likely to use CF&HPFs because of its convenience. Even though undocumented in the literature, it is prudent to argue that households with never-married heads were more likely to use CF&HPFs due to the its convenience and the high tendency of reducing exertion often associated with traditional cooking methods.
Moreover, we found education as another key contributing factor influencing for adoption and use of CF&HPFs among households. This is because the educated household head is more informed on the environmental and health benefits of cleaner cooking fuels hence its choice and usage. One scholar in a similar study opined that educated household heads in urban communities are more inclined to use CF&HPFs [22]. In addition, it is instructive to reason that educated household heads may have more access to economically viable opportunities than their uneducated counterparts. This economic advantage provides educated households with high-income levels hence their ability to purchase CF&HPFs which are relatively expensive but convenient to use.
Besides, the study revealed that household’s with less than eight members have a higher likelihood of using CF&HPFs. We attribute this phenomenon to the reduction in the financial burden in smaller households than larger households. Large households in Ghana are most often dominated by dependent individuals. The high demand for cooking energy uses due to the family size and the challenge of limited resources create the situation of treating the adoption and use of CF&HPFs which are most often expensive as a periphery or less of a household need due to prevailing household welfare status. Other studies confirms this finding [16, 23, 24].
We also found that households with at least two women had a higher likelihood of using CF&HPFs. In Ghana, cooking activities are mostly a preserve of adult female household members. This exposes them, (especially women without clean cooking methods) to chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) such as bronchitis, lung cancer, asthma etc than their counterparts who adopt and use CF&HPFs. We argue that in an attempt to avert the physical drain and negative health implications associated with the burning of solid biomass for cooking, households with 2 or more adult females are more likely to combine financial resources to adopt CF&HPFs which is more convenient, timesaving and healthy. Findings from a study conducted by some authors concur with this observation [16].
The adoption and use of cooking fuels like other graded commodities are highly influenced by the purchasing power of the household. Our study revealed that rich households were 8.85 times likely to use CF&HPFs compared to poor households. The finding agrees with the Energy Ladder Theory that explains the direct relationship between the rise in household income and the adoption of clean cooking energy sources [25]. Again, apart from the ability to purchase CF&HPFs which are most often expensive, there appears to be some luxurious prestige attached with the adoption and use of CF&HPFs which rich households want to be associated with [24].
We investigated whether regional variations influenced the likelihood of a Ghanaian household to use climate-friendly and health-promoting fuels for cooking. The study observed that households within some political administrations in Ghana had a higher probability of using improved cooking methods than others. For example, we observed that households in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Western and Eastern regions were more likely to use CF&HPFs than traditional biomass such as animal dung, fuelwood and biochar. One possible explanation for this observation can be attributed to the urbanized nature of these regions [26]. The Greater Accra region, for example, is the political head and administrative region of Ghana. It is the most urbanized region with about 87.4% of its population living in urban centres with access to viable economic and political resources for an improved standard of living [27]. This implies that households within these regions are more likely to utilize the available economic and political advantage to adopt or adapt climate-friendly and health-promoting fuels for cooking than their counterparts in the other regions of the country. These finding shares some similarities with findings of one other study [28].
Of particular interest in the above finding was the higher probability of households in the Upper East region to use climate and health-promoting fuels for cooking. This is quite revealing because households in the Northern regions of Ghana are the poorest across the country. However, the likelihood of households in the Upper East regions identified in this study to use CF&HPFs suggests some qualitative explanations. It is therefore prudent to argue that the exposure of the Upper East region over the years to some major improved stove interventions such as the Research of Emission, Air Quality, Climate and Cooking Technologies in Northern Ghana Project (REACCTING) as well as the presence of the Navrongo Health Research Center might have influenced this observation. The REACCTING project was aimed at testing the adoption, acceptance, and impact of two improved cookstoves: a locally designed rocket stove (Gypa) and a Philips HD4012 LS gasifier stove. The implementation of this project might have had some over-spill effect on some households in the region. Again, the presence of the Navrongo Health Research Center through their education and other micro-interventions might have influenced the above observation in this study.
The has certain strength and limitations that are worth mentioning. The study employed the cross-sectional analysis which did not permit the researchers to derive causal relationships between predictors and the outcome variable. It is also worth mentioning that few households were excluded from the analysis because they did not cook at home and therefore did not use any domestic cooking energy. Close to four decades, the GDHS program has been conducting its survey every five years, and this has improved the quality of the sampling methodologies, data collection procedures, and the development of the questionnaires. Given that the study used the GDHS dataset that is nationally representative and large, the estimates from the analyses can be generalized for the entire Ghanaian population.