Determinants of asthma in Ethiopia: age and sex matched case control study with special reference to household fuel exposure and housing characteristics

Background Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterized by airway obstruction and hyper-responsiveness. Studies suggest that household fuel exposure and housing characteristics are associated with air way related allergy. But there remains to be a considerable uncertainty about whether that reflects an association with asthma. This study endeavored to bridge the gap by identifying factors associated with asthma, with special reference to household fuel exposure and housing characteristics in selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods We conducted a hospital-based matched case-control study. A total of 483 study participants were selected from two Ethiopian referral hospitals using a sequential sampling technique, with 161 cases and 322 controls. Standard questionnaire from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey II (ECRHS II) and the American Thoracic Society Division of Lung Disease (ATS-DLD-78) were used to collect household related data. Conditional logistic regression model was applied to identify the determinants of asthma. Both crude and adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to identify predictors of asthma. Results The response rate for both cases and controls was 99.17%. The odds of developing asthma was about four times higher among those who used agricultural residues for cooking (AOR: 3.81, 95% CI: 1.05, 13.79)., about five times higher among those who used wood for cooking (AOR: 4.95, 95% CI: 2.1, 11.69), nearly five times higher among those who had family history of asthma (AOR: 4.72, 95% CI: 1.54, 14.45), just over six times higher among those who smoke tobacco (AOR: 6.16, 95% CI: 1.31, 29.09) and over ten times higher among those who do not practice door opening, while cooking (AOR: 10.25, 95% CI: 3.97, 26.49). Conclusion Family history of asthma, tobacco smoking, use of solid fuels including, woods and agricultural residues were associated with development of asthma. To reduce the risk of asthma, people should practice door opening, while cooking, and must avoid using wood and agricultural residues for cooking and should also refrain from tobacco smoking.

Family and household characteristics associated with seropositive cases to SARS-CoV-2 across Mexican households

Objective. To assess the association of family and housing characteristics with the number of seropositive cases to SARS-CoV-2 in households. Materials and methods. We analyzed 874 households from Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición (Ensanut) 2020 Covid-19 using Poisson regression models. Results. The number of seropositive family members was higher among families composed of children/adolescents, adults and older adults, households with more than two members per bedroom, and among households with closed windows. No association was found for bathroom availability and piped water. Conclusions. Family composition and housing characteristics can impose significant structural barriers to safe home confinement.

HOUSING PREFERENCES: AN ANALYSIS OF MALAYSIAN YOUTHS

Housing preferences among Malaysian youths are an important issue because the housing unit prices nowadays are often unaffordable. Malaysian youths confront various challenges nowadays, including marriage, relocating away from home upon graduation, and finding new work opportunities. Youths have developed into the primary section of the housing market who are constantly faced with housing options and decisions. Besides, youths have different preferences for housing characteristics throughout their particular stage of life, which will significantly impact their future lives. Data was gathered from a survey questionnaire answered by 174 Shah Alam youths aged from 18 to 35. This research focuses on identifying the preferred types of houses chosen by youths, involving features such as location, housing price and type of house to live in. The results also showed that the highest-ranked preferred factors were the financial factors, followed by the neighbourhood, location, and design factors.

Survey of Slum Housing Characteristics Using Drones: An Experiment in the Alto das Pombas Community, Salvador de Bahia/Brazil

Since the approval of the Brazilian Federal Technical Assistance Law, whose objective is to guarantee adequate technical assistance to the residents of poor areas to improve their homes, several municipalities have implemented programs, not always successful, to improve housing in slums. Aiming to subsidize these programs implementation workflow, the present paper analyses use of drones as a tool to gather information about the physical characteristics slum households in Salvador de Bahia city, Brazil. As an experiment we flight over a single census sector within the Alto das Pombas slum, and after image processing we extracted and organized the collected data, extracting the possible information that could be applied to identify and quantify the most precarious houses that could be prioritized from a health improvement perspective. We conclude that many of the necessary data needed, on the urbanistic scale in Brazilian slums, can benefit from drone photogrammetry at low cost and fast execution.