Abstract

Most rural households in Asia rely on biomass for cooking and heating needs. In simple household stoves, such fuels produce high levels of emissions and human exposures from a number of health-damaging pollutants including small particles, carbon monoxide, and, toxic organic chemicals. Studies in Asia and elsewhere indicate that the air pollution exposures from such fuel use are probably responsible for more than a million premature annual deaths from respiratory disease and cancer, mostly in women and young children, who receive the highest exposures. Results from a recent randomized trial of improved stoves in Guatemala provide even stronger scientific evidence of the impact on childhood pneumonia, probably the most important effect of this pollution globally. Pneumonia is the largest single cause of death among children in the world and more conventional risk factors, such as malnutrition, do not fully account for its toll. In the long term, clean fuels are the best solution for this problem, but are too expensive for many poor households today. Rural household pollution studies conducted in India, China, and elsewhere indicate that indoor pollution can be significantly reduced by introduction of well-operating improved stove technology with chimneys. Chimneys can improve the situation, but of course do not by themselves eliminate the pollution from the household ambient environment ("neighborhood" pollution). Testing done as part of the recent national stove contest conducted in China, however, has shown that the new generation of "gasifier" stoves can burn biomass nearly as cleanly as stoves burning gas. Wide promotion of these technologies has the potential to significantly reduce the health burden for hundreds of millions of Asian households.

Presentation: http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/docs/SP11_1.ppt