Behavior Change for Clean Cooking: Current Knowledge and Next Steps
Correct and consistent use of clean cooking technologies and fuels can significantly reduce household air pollution, but adoption requires significant changes to existing cooking behaviors.
This was one of the key messages heard from Elizabeth Fox, Director of the Office of Health, Infectious Diseases, and Nutrition with USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, during a USAID-hosted event to highlight lessons from a special issue of the Journal of Health Communication that focused on behavior change strategies for cleaner cooking.
To build awareness of the need for behavior change interventions, USAID joined experts from the Alliance, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, the University of Liverpool and FHI360 at the National Press Club on April 21 to discuss strategies to increase adoption of clean stoves and fuels, and highlight gaps and questions that remain.
The panel discussed how behavior change is defined in the clean cooking field, noted some of the key lessons that could be applied from other sectors, and provided suggestions for integrating behavior change into clean cooking efforts. Additional details from the published articles discussed, including editorials, are available on open access here: https://bit.ly/Cookstoves.
Listen to the presentation here: