Burning Issues: Tackling Indoor Air Pollution
“Indoor air pollution is gradually gaining more global attention as an important public health issue. Talha Khan Burki reports on new initiatives to stem people’s exposure to household smoke.”
“The best vaccine for pneumonia is ensuring kids don’t breathe dirty air at home”, asserts Maria Neira, director of WHO’s Public Health and the Environment Department, referring to just one of the many health problems arising from indoor air pollution.”
According to WHO, 2 million people die as a result of the smoke generated by open fires or crude stoves within their homes every year. Indoor air pollution has been definitively linked to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and pneumonia, the risk of which is doubled by exposure to indoor smoke. More than 900 000 people die from pneumonia caused by indoor air pollution every year. 500 million households worldwide—roughly 3 billion people—rely on solid fuels, such as wood, animal dung, or coal, for cooking and heating. These fuels are usually burned in a rudimentary stove, or in a traditional open fire. It need not be a problem, at least in terms of health. But only assuming the fuel is completely combusted—wood must be dry, and the stove must work efficiently—and there is plenty of ventilation, a spacious chimney, or a sizeable window. In those places where the use of solid fuels prevails, however, these conditions rarely apply, and the consequences can be severe.”
Moreover, research into the subject began fairly recently, and is far from comprehensive. The pollutants carried by indoor smoke can fill households to levels well in excess of WHO guidelines for indoor air quality. Emerging evidence implicates indoor smoke in the development of tuberculosis, low birthweight and perinatal mortality, asthma, cataracts, and cardiovascular disease. Some of this might well be taken into account when WHO updates its global burden of disease data later this year. Even the numbers for lung cancer might be underestimated: the percentage refers only to those cases attributable to the burning of coal—predominantly in China—which doubles the risk of lung cancer, but when biomass fuels (wood, for instance) burn, they also emit carcinogens.”