Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Supply and Demand for Cooking in Northern Ghana.

Like many other countries, Ghana relies on biomass (mainly wood and charcoal) for most of its cooking needs. A national action plan aims to expand liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) access to 50% of the country's population by 2020. While the country's southern urban areas have made progress toward this goal, LPG use for cooking remains low in the north. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to characterize the current state of the LPG market in this area and examine opportunities and barriers to scale up LPG adoption. We interviewed 16 LPG suppliers (stove, cylinder, and fuel vendors) as well as 592 households in the Kassena-Nankana Districts (KND) of Ghana. We find large rural-urban differences in LPG uptake: less than 10% of rural households own LPG stoves compared with over half of urban households. Awareness of LPG is high across the region, but accessibility of fuel supply is highly limited, with just one refilling station located in the KND. Affordability is perceived as the main barrier to LPG adoption, and acceptability is also limited by widespread concerns about the safety of cooking with LPG. Transitioning to a cylinder recirculation model, and providing more targeted subsidies and credit options, should be explored to expand access to cleaner cooking in this region.

Mosquito Avoidance Practices and Knowledge of Arboviral Diseases in Cities with Differing Recent History of Disease.

As the range of dengue virus (DENV) transmission expands, an understanding of community uptake of prevention and control strategies is needed both in geographic areas where the virus has recently been circulating and in areas with the potential for DENV introduction. Personal protective behaviors such as the use of mosquito repellent to limit human-vector contact and the reduction of vector density through elimination of oviposition sites are the primary control methods for Aedes aegypti, the main vector of DENV. Here, we examined personal mosquito control measures taken by individuals in Key West, FL, in 2012, which had experienced a recent outbreak of DENV, and Tucson, AZ, which has a high potential for introduction but has not yet experienced autochthonous transmission. In both cities, there was a positive association between the numbers of mosquitoes noticed outdoors and the overall number of avoidance behaviors, use of repellent, and removal of standing water. Increased awareness and perceived risk of DENV were associated with increases in one of the most effective household prevention behaviors, removal of standing water, but only in Key West.