Uwe Reischl presented a keynote address at the 7th International Ergonomics Conference in Zadar, Croatia, June 13-16. The presentation, titled “Killer Smoke in Kenya,” provided results of a kitchen ventilation design research project carried out at Boise State University and in Kenya.
A new ventilation design solution was developed that demonstrated the ability to reduce indoor kitchen smoke build-up by 85 percent. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 2 million women die prematurely each year in Africa as a result of such smoke exposure. The objective of the new ventilation design is to reduce the public health burden imposed on rural families in Kenya. Collaboration with Eco2librium and researchers at the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) in Kakamega, provided Boise State University with the ability to implement this design feature at the local community level.
The conference presentation and the associated research paper were co-authored with Olga Salinas, an academic advisor in the College of Health Sciences.