Risk factors for chronic bronchitis among women in Shahrekord, Iran

ABSTRACT

Chronic bronchitis is expected to be less prevalent among Iranian women, since smoking is uncommon among them, however, recent reports disagreed this claim. Traditional baking and cooking with biomass fuel [wood fuel being the most commonly used] is still common in our villages and small towns. These seem to be contributive factors for high prevalence rate of chronic bronchitis among women. We conducted a case-control study to identify the possible risk of indoor smoke and biomass combustion. We compared 100 chronic bronchitis cases with 100 age-matched controls. The odds ratio [OR] was used as the basic statistic to evaluate risk. Chronic bronchitis was associated with cigarette smoking [OR=6.10; p=0.009], water-pipe smoking [OR=4.41; p=0.014], household baking [OR=4.90; p=0.002], using wood for baking [OR=3.04; p=0.000], using wood for space heating [OR=2.36; p=0.009], using wood for cooking [OR=7.17; p= 0.000], and using kerosene fuel for cooking [OR= 4.63; p=0.000]. Results have revealed that among women in Chahar- Mahal- Bakhtiari, wood and other biomass fuels used for cooking, baking and heating are associated with chronic bronchitis. Changing to safer alternative fuels for cooking and heating would ameliorate the impacts of chronic bronchitis