ReviewA review of diseases associated with household air pollution due to the use of biomass fuels
Highlights
► The health hazard associated with the use of biomass fuel is one important area of indoor pollution. ► A review on the type of diseases resulting from the use of biomass fuel is evaluated thoroughly. ► The status of indoor pollution and related diseases is evaluated by comparing many studies. ► It is one of the major global public health threats that require greater efforts for prevention.
Introduction
Being an important source of indoor air pollution (IAP), domestic energy source tends to be associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The status of the IAP can thus directly reflect the level and duration of exposure to deleterious pollutants [1]. Among various sources of IAP, the environmental significance of cooking activities has drawn a great deal of attention. Cooking-related IAP is known to be affected by the combined effects of fuel types, food materials, cooking styles, and so on.
Many types of pollutants are found to be released mainly from food materials and/or ingredients when food is fried, stir-fried, or grilled at a high temperature [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Like many deleterious substances produced from food materials via fire-based cooking, they are also emitted in the form of smoke and particles from cooking fuel. Those pollutants are identified to consist of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbonyls, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides (principally from coal), formaldehyde, and polycyclic organic matter (e.g., carcinogenous benzo[a] pyrene) [7]. Approximately half the world's population and up to 90% of rural households in developing countries still rely on unprocessed biomass fuels in the form of wood, animal dung, and crop residues [8]. China, Korea, South Africa, and some other countries also extensively use coal for domestic needs [7]. These fuels are burnt indoors in open fires using poorly functioning stoves. As combustion is incomplete in most of these stoves, it can also serve as a key route to transfer high levels of indoor pollutants to those who are responsible for cooking and their family members. Exposure to IAP may be responsible for nearly 2 million excess deaths in developing countries and for some 4% of the global burden of disease [9]. Children are particularly vulnerable to IAP because their metabolic pathways are underdeveloped and immature [10]. In this article, we intended to explore the diverse health risks associated with cooking emissions in relation with the use of coal and biomass fuels. The overall picture of our coverage on these issues is briefly depicted in Fig. 1.
Section snippets
Type of fuel used for cooking
The energy requirement for cooking depends on many factors such as the type of food cooked, the number of meals cooked, household size, the specific combination of energy source, and cooking equipment employed (type of stove, cooking pans, etc.). Traditional biomass fuel is one of the major sources of domestic energy especially in the developing countries. About 2.4 billion people rely on traditional biomass, mainly for cooking and heating as they have limited access to better alternative
Respiratory diseases associated with cooking activities
As the major sources of IAP, combustion by-products released from heating and cooking can increase potential health risks (Table 2). There is now evidence linking an increased risk of cooking emissions with diverse diseases which include respiratory tract infections, exacerbations of inflammatory lung conditions, cardiac events, stroke, eye disease, tuberculosis (TB), and even cancer [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]. For instance, acute respiratory infections in children and chronic
Non-respiratory illness
Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of biomass fuels can cause enormous health burden apart from respiratory illness. A tight relationship is thus expected to exist between such activities and an increased risk of non-respiratory illness such as: low birth weight in neonates, nutritional deficiencies, cardiac events, stroke, eye disease, nasopharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer [64], [65], [66].
Conclusion
Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of biomass fuel has the great potential to affect global mortality and morbidity. The amount of fuel burnt individually at the household level may be much less than the amount in use in industries. However, its impact on health is greater due to its ubiquitous and persistent presence in the indoor environment and the greater amount of time spent indoors by humans, especially women and children. This issue is one of the neglected areas of global
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) (No. 2010-0007876).
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