Cooking Stoves, Indoor Air Pollution, and Respiratory Health in IndiaPDF version
One half of the world’s households, and up to 95% of people in poor countries, burn wood, dung, peat and other biomass fuels, as well as coal, for energy. As women are primarily responsible for cooking, and children often spend time with their mothers, women and young children are disproportionately affected by the indoor air pollution caused by the use of solid fuels and traditional stoves. Acute respiratory infection is one of the leading causes of child mortality in the world, accounting for up to 20% of fatalities among children under five, almost all of them in developing countries.
Over 72% of all households in India and 90% of households in the country’s poorer, rural areas use traditional solid fuels, such as crop residue, cow-dung and firewood, to meet their cooking energy needs. Burning solid fuels indoors results in high levels of toxic pollutants, a major risk factor for lung cancer, and cardiovascular and respiratory disease. In response, NGOs and governments have distributed tens of millions of “improved” or “clean” stoves that aim to reduce the concentration of air pollutants indoors by burning cleaner fuels and/or removing the smoke from houses through chimneys. However, there is still considerable debate about the benefits of these improved stoves. Cleaner fuels are often expensive, while improved biomass stoves require maintenance and do not eliminate indoor air pollution entirely.
A local NGO Gram Vikas, phased 2,500 households across Orissa into an intervention to reduce indoor air pollution. The randomization was carried out at the household level in participating villages. In each village, one third of the households, chosen by a public lottery, received an improved stove in 2006. Gram Vikas subsidized the stove’s cost by contributing stove materials and design, but households were responsible for providing mud for the stove base, labor and a payment of 30 rupees which was used to pay the person who assisted in building and maintaining the stoves. The second third, selected by another lottery, received improved stoves 18 months after the first wave, and so forth. Surveys collected detailed information regarding fuel and stove use, health, employment, and income for these rural Indian households and by comparing households with and without clean stoves, researchers will be able to determine the effects of improved stove use.
This project specifically aims to test the impact of clean stoves on human health, productivity, and people’s exposure to indoor air pollution. Researchers will also assess the cost-effectiveness of distributing clean stoves, relative to other programs which aim to improve health.
Results forthcoming.
