title: Anthropometric characteristics of female smallholder farmers of Uganda--Toward design of labor-saving tools.
abstract: Sub-Saharan African women on small-acreage farms carry a disproportionately higher labor burden, which is one of the main reasons they are unable to produce for both home and the market and realize higher incomes. Labor-saving interventions such as hand-tools are needed to save time and/or increase productivity in, for example, land preparation for crop and animal agriculture, post-harvest processing, and meeting daily energy and water needs. Development of such tools requires comprehensive and content-specific anthropometric data or body dimensions and existing databases based on Western women may be less relevant. We conducted measurements on 89 women to provide preliminary results toward answering two questions. First, how well existing databases are applicable in the design of hand-tools for sub-Saharan African women. Second, how universal body dimension predictive models are among ethnic groups. Our results show that, body dimensions between Bantu and Nilotic ethnolinguistic groups are different and both are different from American women. These results strongly support the need for establishing anthropometric databases for sub-Saharan African women, toward hand-tool design.
authors: Smallholder Fortunes, P.O. Box 30385, Kampala, Uganda; College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda.
authors: Dana J
authors: DJ
authors: Mugisa
authors: Smallholder Fortunes, P.O. Box 30385, Kampala, Uganda.
authors: Abia
authors: A
authors: Katimbo
authors: Smallholder Fortunes, P.O. Box 30385, Kampala, Uganda.
authors: John E
authors: JE
authors: Sempiira
authors: College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda; College of Engineering, University of Georgia, Driftmier Engineering Center, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Electronic address: williamk@engr.uga.edu.
authors: William S
authors: WS
authors: Kisaalita
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000383:Agriculture / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000886:Anthropometry / Q000379:methods*; D044383:Black People / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D049628:Body Size / Q000208:ethnology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000379:methods; D006804:Ergonomics / Q000379:methods; D000067565:Farmers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D014454:Uganda / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: Anthropometric data; Ethnic difference; Hand-tool design; Mechanization