Background
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) seven highlights the need to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Improving access to reliable and affordable modern energy for cooking have far-reaching benefits on human health. This study examines the relationship between the adoption of solid biomass fuel (SBF) for cooking and health outcomes.
Methods
The study used a nationally representative household-level data from a survey of 14,009 households in Ghana. For the econometric analysis, a biprobit model was employed to estimate the effect of SBF adoption on health outcomes.
Results
The results show that adoption of SBF increases the probability of a household reporting ill-health and reporting frequently to a health facility by 25% each, respectively.
Conclusions
The findings of the study imply that ensuring affordability of clean fuel will enable households in developing countries to transition from traditional biomass to clean cooking fuels. Government programs and policies that aim at encouraging the use of clean fuel for cooking must target private occupants and homeowners.