Clean Fuels to Reduce Household Air Pollution and Improve Health. Still Hoping to Answer Why and How

Household air pollution (HAP) from indoor burning of biomass or coal is a leading global cause of morbidity and mortality, mostly due to its association with acute respiratory infection in children and chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in adults. Interventions that have significantly reduced exposure to HAP improve health outcomes and may reduce mortality. However, we lack robust, specific, and field-ready biomarkers to identify populations at greatest risk and to monitor the effectiveness of interventions. New scientific approaches are urgently needed to develop biomarkers of human exposure that accurately reflect exposure or effect. In this Perspective, we describe the global need for such biomarkers, the aims of biomarker development, and the state of development of tests that have the potential for rapid transition from laboratory bench to field use.

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Effectiveness of interventions to reduce household air pollution and/or improve health in homes using solid fuel in low-and-middle income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Environment International ◽

10.1016/j.envint.2017.03.010 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 103 ◽

pp. 73-90 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

Reginald Quansah ◽

Sean Semple ◽

Caroline A. Ochieng ◽

Sanjar Juvekar ◽

Frederick Ato Armah ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Solid Fuel ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Household Air Pollution ◽

Middle Income ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

Improve Health ◽

Low And Middle Income

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Pregnant Women’s Exposure to Household Air Pollution in Rural Bangladesh: A Feasibility Study for Poriborton: The CHANge Trial

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph19010482 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 482

Author(s):

Jonathan Thornburg ◽

Sajia Islam ◽

Sk Masum Billah ◽

Brianna Chan ◽

Michelle McCombs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Feasibility Study ◽

Personal Exposure ◽

Temporal Analysis ◽

Household Air Pollution ◽

Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽

Intervention Phase ◽

External Sources ◽

Late Evening ◽

Improve Health

The use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking is a strategy to reduce household air pollution (HAP) exposure and improve health. We conducted this feasibility study to evaluate personal exposure measurement methods to representatively assess reductions in HAP exposure. We enrolled 30 pregnant women to wear a MicroPEM for 24 h to assess their HAP exposure when cooking with a traditional stove (baseline) and with an LPG stove (intervention). The women wore the MicroPEM an average of 77% and 69% of the time during the baseline and intervention phases, respectively. Mean gravimetric PM2.5 mass and black carbon concentrations were comparable during baseline and intervention. Temporal analysis of the MicroPEM nephelometer data identified high PM2.5 concentrations in the afternoon, late evening, and overnight during the intervention phase. Likely seasonal sources present during the intervention phase were emissions from brick kiln and rice parboiling facilities, and evening kerosene lamp and mosquito coil use. Mean background adjusted PM2.5 concentrations during cooking were lower during intervention at 71 μg/m3, versus 105 μg/m3 during baseline. Representative real-time personal PM2.5 concentration measurements supplemented with ambient PM2.5 measures and surveys will be a valuable tool to disentangle external sources of PM2.5, other indoor HAP sources, and fuel-sparing behaviors when assessing the HAP reduction due to intervention with LPG stoves.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of A comparative study of human exposures to household air pollution from commonly used cookstoves in Sri Lanka.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.726092192.793523309 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Sundeep Salvi

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Sri Lanka ◽

Comparative Study ◽

Household Air Pollution

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Association between household air pollution and child mortality in Myanmar using a multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression with robust variance

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-92193-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Juwel Rana ◽

Rakibul M. Islam ◽

Md Nuruzzaman Khan ◽

Razia Aliani ◽

Youssef Oulhote

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Child Mortality ◽

Survey Design ◽

Household Air Pollution ◽

P Value ◽

Middle Income ◽

Under Five ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

Relative Risks ◽

Clean Cookstoves

AbstractHousehold air pollution (HAP) from solid fuel use (SFU) for cooking is a major public health threat for women and children in low and middle-income countries. This study investigated the associations between HAP and neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality in Myanmar. The study consisted of 3249 sample of under-five children in the households from the first Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2016. Fuel types and levels of exposure to SFU (no, moderate and high) were proxies for HAP. We estimated covariate-adjusted relative risks (aRR) of neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality with 95% confidence intervals, accounting for the survey design. The prevalence of SFU was 79.0%. The neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality rates were 26, 45, and 49 per 1000 live births, respectively. The risks of infant (aRR 2.02; 95% CI 1.01–4.05; p-value = 0.048) and under-five mortality (aRR 2.16; 95% CI 1.07–4.36; p-value = 0.031), but not neonatal mortality, were higher among children from households with SFU compared to children from households using clean fuel. Likewise, children highly exposed to HAP had higher risks of mortality than unexposed children. HAP increases the risks of infant and under-five child mortality in Myanmar, which could be reduced by increasing access to clean cookstoves and fuels.

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