Air quality is not something that you see with your naked eyes: knowledge, attitudes and perceptions about air pollution among stakeholders in the cities of Kampala and Jinja, Uganda
Air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide (WHO, 2022) and is responsible for an estimated seven million premature deaths annually. Africa alone accounts for over one million of these deaths (Health Effects Institute, 2022) which exemplifies the magnitude of the challenge that the continent faces. Air pollution is associated with several diseases including bronchitis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), pneumonia, stroke and cardiovascular disease (WHO, 2021). The related health outcomes exert a sizeable burden on healthcare systems and negatively impact on labour productivity (Landrigan et al., 2018; World Bank, 2022).
Like many African countries, Uganda is rapidly urbanising (Tumwesigye et al., 2023) and facing the challenge of air pollution (Awokola et al., 2022; Okello et al., 2018; Okure et al., 2022) especially in cities. Several studies have reported very high levels of air pollution in rapidly urbanising cities in Uganda, between 8 to 12 times higher than the recommended PM2.5 World Health Organisation (WHO) annual concentration (Coker et al., 2021).
Relatedly, Uganda experiences approximately 30,000 annual deaths associated with air pollution (IHME, 2022) and has a high burden of respiratory diseases with a population-level prevalence of asthma estimated at 11.02% (Kirenga et al., 2018) and COPD at 16% (van Gemert et al., 2015).
Strategies to reduce air pollution exposure to date have majorly focused on technical solutions (e.g. the introduction of improved cookstoves (Kyayesimira & Muheirwe, 2021; Phillip et al., 2023), the introduction of biogas, or new cleaner fuels for cooking) with many interventions achieving suboptimal success. Recent systematic reviews of the effectiveness of air pollution mitigation interventions (Pope & Mays, 2006; Quansah et al., 2017) point failure to deliver health benefits to a lack of evidence around cultural acceptability (Woolley et al., 2022); the need for more individualised approaches taking into account cultural and social contexts (Vigolo et al., 2018); and focus on behavioural changes (education and awareness) (Okello et al. 2023). They recommend further engagement with communities to increase intervention appropriateness.
Few studies have explored knowledge, attitude, and perception of air quality, particularly in Africa (Andres et al., 2023; Odonkor & Mahami, 2020). There have been calls to expand qualitative research to understand how residence perceptions come about, synthesising the important roles of cultural,
socioeconomic, psychological, and professional backgrounds in people’s risk perceptions of air pollution and health impacts (Noel et al., 2021).
Much as cities in Africa are experiencing some of the worst air pollution, with concentrations significantly greater than the World Health Organization recommended levels, major sources and influencing activities differ. As such, there is no “one size fits all” solution, therefore, a nuanced understanding of distinctive attributes of each locality is essential for developing context-specific effective and sustainable mitigation strategies. Assessing the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of stakeholders whose roles affect air pollution and/or related health outcomes could be a critical step to fostering understanding of context-specific sources and lived experiences.
In order to increase the body of evidence, we conducted a qualitative study to get a better understanding of the current knowledge, attitude and perceptions among stakeholders whose roles influence air quality and/or related health outcomes in Kampala and Jinja cities in Uganda. The overarching aim of our qualitative study was to better mobilise local evidence, which could subsequently be integrated in the inclusive and collaborative co-designing and co-production of air quality strategies and thus guiding in the shaping of the air quality landscape in cities in Uganda.
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Temukan peta dengan kualitas terbaik untuk gambar peta indonesia lengkap dengan provinsi.
