INDOOR AIR POLLUTION

I. GLOBAL INDOOR AIR POLLUTION

a. Developing Countries
i. Around 3 billion people still cook and heat their homes using solid fuels (i.e.
wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal and dung) in open fires and leaky stoves.
Most are poor, and live in low- and middle-income countries.
Such inefficient cooking fuels and technologies produce high levels of
household air pollution with a range of health-damaging pollutants, including
small soot particles that penetrate deep into the lungs. In poorly ventilated
dwellings, indoor smoke can be 100 times higher than acceptable levels for fine
particles. Exposure is particularly high among women and young children, who
spend the most time near the domestic hearth.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/

b. Developed Countries
i.
II. LOCAL INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
III. HEALTH EFFECTS
a. 4.3 million people a year die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air
pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels (2012 data) for cooking. Among
these deaths:
i. 12% are due to pneumonia
ii. 34% from stroke
iii. 26% from ischaemic heart disease
iv. 22% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and
v. 6% from lung cancer.
Pneumonia
Exposure to household air pollution almost doubles the risk for childhood
pneumonia. Over half of deaths among children less than 5 years old from acute lower
respiratory infections (ALRI) are due to particulate matter inhaled from indoor air
pollution from household solid fuels (WHO, 2014).
Stroke
Nearly one quarter of all premature deaths due to stroke (i.e. about 1.4 million
deaths of which half are in women) can be attributed to the chronic exposure to
household air pollution caused by cooking with solid fuels.
Ischaemic heart disease
Approximately 15% of all deaths due to ischaemic heart disease, accounting for
over a million premature deaths annually, can be attributed to exposure to household
air pollution.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Over one-third of premature deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD) in adults in low- and middle-income countries are due to exposure to
household air pollution. Women exposed to high levels of indoor smoke are more than
2 times as likely to suffer from COPD than women who use cleaner fuels. Among men
(who already have a heightened risk of COPD due to their higher rates of smoking),
exposure to indoor smoke nearly doubles (i.e. 1.9) that risk.
 Lung cancer
Approximately 17% of annual premature lung cancer deaths in adults are
attributable to exposure to carcinogens from household air pollution caused by cooking
with solid fuels like wood, charcoal or coal. The risk for women is higher, due to their
role in food preparation.
Other health impacts and risks
More generally, small particulate matter and other pollutants in indoor smoke
inflame the airways and lungs, impairing immune response and reducing the oxygen-
carrying capacity of the blood.
There is also evidence of links between household air pollution and low birth
weight, tuberculosis, cataract, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers.
Mortality from ischaemic heart disease and stroke are also affected by risk
factors such as high blood pressure, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity and
smoking. Some other risks for childhood pneumonia include suboptimal breastfeeding,
underweight and second-hand smoke. For lung cancer and chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, active smoking and second-hand tobacco smoke are also main risk
factors.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/

ILLNES BROUGHT BY INDOOR AIR

POLLUTION
Lung Cancer Pneumonia
Chronic
6% 12%
Obstructive
Pumonary
Disease (COPD)
22%

Stroke
34%

Ischaemic
Heart Disease
26%
b. Health Impacts (piliin mo na lang kung ito o yung “a” pweds gamitin)
- Indoor air pollution has a wide range of negative health
impacts, which can lead to morbidity but also in many cases,
mortality. The table below features summary data from the
World Health Organization (WHO) on the extent of proven links
between indoor air pollution and potential health outcomes.
These health outcomes range from respiratory infections to
chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD) to lung cancer
and have varying effects on the population depending on
factors such as age and sex.
 Health impacts vary in terms of the strength of evidence linking
outcomes with indoor air pollution. The WHO define 'strong
evidence' based on results from a range of studies on solid fuel
using in developing countries with biochemical and laboratory
evidence of health impacts; 'moderate I' has at least three
studies showing strong evidence for specific age and sex groups;
and 'moderate II' has at least three studies showing potential
links but with more limited evidence.

https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution

c. Number of deaths by region

In the visualisation below we see the absolute number of global deaths attributed to
indoor air pollution from 1990 onwards. These deaths have been aggregated by region.
Overall we see a decline in the number of pollution-related deaths since 1990, falling
from 3.7 million to 2.6 million in 2016.
 When broken down by region we see that this decline since 1990 is true across the
world. Deaths from air pollution are largely concentrated in Asia and Africa.
Approximately three-quarters of all deaths in 2016 were in Asia, with 22-23 percent in
Africa & the Middle East, and only a couple of percent across the Americas and Europe
(with most of these originating in Latin America & the Caribbean).

https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution

d. Number of deaths per country

- Absolute number of deaths can also be assessed and compared by country in
the visualisation below. At the country level, India followed by China had the
highest mortality figures in 2016 with 783,000 and 605,000 respectively. These
numbers have, however, shown a significant decline in recent years. In the last
decade alone the number of deaths from household air pollution in China has
approximately halved.
This decline is also true for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with high
mortality figures. Ethiopia and Nigeria - who have the two highest death tolls in
SSA - have both seen a inverse-U trend of increase-peak-decline since 1990. This
is however not true everywhere: the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to
still be on the upward slope of this pattern.
 (temporal data ‘to. Check mo link https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution)

e. Death rates from indoor air pollution over time

- In the chart below we see that, at the global level, the death
rate (per 100,000 people) from diseases related to indoor air
pollution has declined significantly since 1990. There are large
differences in the risk of indoor air pollution globally: in high-
income nations, the likelihood is typically zero; in low- to
middle-income nations, it can be the dominant form of air-
pollution related deaths. This risk is, however, continuing to fall
at the global level and in most low- to middle-income
economies.
 (temporal uli ‘to. Same link)

IV. ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

- Black carbon (sooty particles) and methane emitted by inefficient stove combustion are
powerful climate change pollutants. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/
-
INTERVENTION
I. WHO POLICIES
- WHO provides technical support to countries in their own evaluations and scale-up of
health-promoting household fuels and technologies. WHO is building capacity at the
country and regional level to address household air pollution with workshops and the
development of tools to help design, implement and monitor policies addressing
household energy. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/
II. GLOBAL POLICIES
- The solution for this problem is straightforward: shift from solid fuels to modern energy
sources.

And the following chart shows that the world is making progress in this direction. In
1980 almost two thirds of the world’s population used solid fuels for their cooking. 30
years later this is down to 41%. The chart also shows that it is a problem associated with
poverty: In richer Europe and North America the share is much lower than in the rest of
the world; and in the high income countries of the world the use of solid fuels is entirely
a thing of the past.

The use of solid fuels is going down in all of the world’s regions. But the success rapidly
developing South East Asia is particularly impressive: Here the share fell from 95% to
61%.
- Type of fuel used for cooking
Share of population relying on different types of solid fuels for cooking by
developing regions, 2007 – UNDP & WHO (2009)

- The obvious way to avoid indoor air pollution from solid fuel burning is for households
to transition from traditional ways of cooking and heating towards more modern,
 cleaner methods. This can, for example, be in the form of transitioning towards non-
solid fuels such as natural gas, ethanol or even electric technologies.

The chart below shows the percentage of households with access to clean fuels and
technologies for cooking by countries and regions since 2002. This share has been
increasing for most countries at low-to-middle incomes, however, rates of increase vary
by country and region. Access to clean fuels are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa where only
13 percent of households in 2014 has access. Progress has been much more significant
in South Asia and East Asia over the last decade, with 10 percent and 15 percent of
additional households gaining access, respectively.

https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution

III. Statistics of improvements

a. Death rates from indoor air pollution versus access to clean fuels
- This link between exposure to indoor air pollution and mortality rates is further shown
in the chart below. Here, this plots the age-standardized death rate from indoor air
pollution (measured per 100,000 individuals) on the y-axis, against the share of the
population with access to clean fuels for cooking. Overall we see that countries with the
highest death rate from indoor air pollution are those with very low access to clean fuels
(i.e. have a high dependence on solid fuels instead). As access to clean fuels and
technologies increases, death rates from household air pollution begin and continue to
fall.
 https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution

SUPPLEMENTS :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11760/

http://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/78(9)1078.pdf