Effect of Indoor Air Pollution on Acute Respiratory Infection among Children in India

Kumar Ashwani,Paul Kalosona

doi:10.12955/snsj.v10i2.885

Abstract

Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) has become a major concern in India in recent years because women and young children are highly exposed to smoke of various types of unclean fuels used for cooking and heating in the household result into risk of respiratory disorders among them. The paper aims to seek association between prevalence of acute respiratory infection (ARI) among children less than five years of age and use of cooking fuels in households of India. The analysis is based on 52,868 Children less than five years of age included in India's third National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005-2006. Effects of exposure to cooking smoke, determined by the type of fuel used for cooking such as biomass and solid fuels versus cleaner fuels, on the reported prevalence of ARI were estimated using multivariate logistic regression. Since the effects of cooking smoke are likely to be confounded with effects of tobacco smoking, age, and other such factors, the analysis was carried out after statistically controlling for such factors. The results indicate that Children under five years of age living in households using biomass and solid fuels have a significantly higher risk of ARI than those living in households using cleaner fuels (OR: 1.54; 95%CI: 1.38-1.72; p = .010). The findings have important program and policy implications for countries such as India, where large proportions of the population still rely on polluting biomass fuels for cooking and heating. Decreasing household biomass and solid fuel use and increasing use of improved stove technology may decrease the health effects of indoor air pollution. More epidemiological research with better measures of smoke exposure and clinical measures of ARI is needed to validate the findings.

Highlights

One-half of the world’s households and up to 95 per cent of people in poor countries burn wood, dung-cake, peat and other biomass fuels, as well as coal, for energy
Even when the 11 socioeconomic and demographic control variables are included in Model 5, the children living in households cooking with unclean fuels still has a statistically significant effect (OR = 1.30; 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), 1.05–1.40) on the prevalence of acute respiratory infection (ARI) compared with those living in households that use cleaner fuels
Taking into account the models that have been applied for estimation, findings would suggest that indoor air pollution from unclean fuel combustion is a public health problem in major parts of India

Summary

INTRODUCTION

One-half of the world’s households and up to 95 per cent of people in poor countries burn wood, dung-cake, peat and other biomass fuels, as well as coal, for energy. There is consistent evidence that exposure to indoor air pollution increases the risk of pneumonia among children under age five years, and of chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer (in relation to coal use) among adults aged over 30 years (WHO, 2005). India, where over 70 per cent of the country population are at the risk of exposure due to unclean fuels use for cooking and heating in their households and toll lakhs of life and millions of years of disease burden per year, need to address the issue related to indoor air pollution and their impact on human. We used information from this question to group households into two categories representing the extent of exposure to cooking smoke - high-exposure group (households using fuels: wood, crop residues, dung cakes, or coal/coke/ lignite/charcoal - unclean fuels), low-exposure group (households using fuels: liquid petroleum gas, biogas, kerosene or electricity - clean fuel) This two-category classification of fuels is the principal predictor variable. Weights are used to restore the representativeness of the sample (IIPS & ORC Macro, 2007)

Results and Discussion

Background characteristics

CONCLUSION