Quantitative Survey on Community Based Burn Injury

Background

The WHO Violence and Injury Prevention Programme and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves funded this pilot field test of the “Community-based Injury Survey with New Burns Module”. The burns module gathers detailed information on the cause of burn injury, as well as health-seeking behaviour and impacts (health and socio-economic). The primary objective was to test the survey in operational conditions; secondary objectives were to obtain indicative incidence rates of different types of injury, their causes, risk factors and impacts. This report presents a comprehensive description of the survey process and a summary of the survey results.

The rural districts of Nuwakot and Rasuwa in Nepal were selected for the field test as they have a high proportion of households using biomass fuel in traditional open fires for cooking.

Objectives

1. To pilot test the community-based injury survey (with burn injury module) in field conditions using a cluster sampling survey design
2. To describe the patterns of injuries observed (fatal and non-fatal) and risk factors
3. To describe the impacts of the injuries on the individual and household
4. To explore the link between unimproved cookstoves and burn injury in children 14 years and under

Methodology

Thirty clusters were selected for this study. The clusters were selected using the method of probability proportionate sampling relative to the number of households as determined by the 2011 census.