Developing exposure assessment methods for indoor air pollutants from household combustion of solid fuels in rural areas of southern India

Abstract

Household use of solid fuels such as biomass, charcoal and coal is now recognized as an important risk factor for disease burden in populations, especially in developing countries. Use of these fuels in open or un-vented stoves results in emissions of a range of toxic pollutants resulting from incomplete combustion. These emissions expose household members, in particular women and children to concentrations that are often several fold in excess of available health based guideline values. It is now estimated that indoor air pollution that results from the use of such solid fuels may be responsible for nearly 1.6 million excess deaths, about 3 % of the global burden of disease annually, making it the second leading environmental risk factor after poor water quality and sanitation. Much of this epidemiological evidence is however based on the increased risk of health effects observed in households using solid fuels relative to those that do not use these fuels. In India over the last two decades, although a few dozen studies concerning indoor air pollution levels /exposures associated with biomass combustion have been carried out, they have had small sample sizes and were not statistically representative of the population. Routinely collected information in national surveys often lack precision for estimating household-level exposures. The influence of multiple household level variables such as the type of fuel, type and location of kitchen and type of stove, on actual exposures is poorly understood. Further, compared to the north and west, relatively few studies have been carried out in southern India. Based on this background, the present study was designed to monitor household pollution concentrations in a statistically representative rural sample in southern India and to record time/activity and other information at the householdlevel, in order to estimate the exposures of different household members.