Household Air Pollution and Health Impacts

Household air pollution arises primarily from the combustion of solid and liquid fuels—such as wood, charcoal, coal, dung and kerosene—for cooking, heating and lighting in domestic environments. Emissions from traditional stoves and open fires generate elevated concentrations of harmful pollutants, notably fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide and black carbon. Prolonged exposure to these pollutants is linked to a diverse spectrum of health outcomes, including acute lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischaemic heart disease, lung cancer, stroke and adverse reproductive outcomes such as low birth weight and preterm delivery. The global burden remains substantial, with a concentration of cases in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, where reliance on polluting fuels is high and access to clean energy is limited. Despite gradual declines in the proportion of the population exposed, absolute numbers have changed little due to population growth. Interventions to transition households to cleaner fuels and improved stoves are therefore critical for reducing morbidity and mortality, as are strategies to monitor exposure, quantify health benefits and target policy measures in under-resourced settings.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have used high-frequency household surveys to assess how external shocks, notably the COVID-19 pandemic, influenced energy-use patterns in rural regions of India. Findings indicate that economic hardship and job losses led some families to revert from cleaner liquefied petroleum gas and electricity to more polluting fuels. Innovative subsidy programmes, including free cylinder distribution, proved effective in sustaining cleaner fuel use, illustrating the importance of affordability and supply-chain resilience in energy transitions.

Geospatial analyses have offered new insights into the distribution of clean cooking solutions across sub-Saharan Africa. By employing spatial decision-support tools to compare stoves on economic and health metrics, researchers have identified regions with the greatest potential net benefits from transitioning away from traditional biomass. This spatially explicit approach enables more precise targeting of interventions, highlighting that policy levers and market incentives must be tailored to local cost-benefit landscapes to overcome behavioural and infrastructural barriers.

Household Air Pollution and Health Impacts publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in household air pollution and health impacts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Household air pollution: Pollutant exposure inside homes, mainly from burning solid or liquid fuels for cooking and heating.

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5): Particles with aerodynamic diameters of 2.5 micrometres or less, capable of deep lung penetration.

Disability-adjusted life-year (DALY): A measure combining years of life lost due to premature mortality and years lived with disability.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG): A clean-burning fuel composed of propane and butane, used for domestic cooking and heating.

Exposure–response relationship: The quantitative link between pollutant dose and the probability or severity of health outcomes.

References

1. Global, regional, and national burden of household air pollution, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet (2025).
2. Using high-frequency household surveys to describe energy use in rural North India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Energy (2023).
3. Estimated health effects from domestic use of gaseous fuels for cooking and heating in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analyses. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine (2024).
4. A geospatial approach to understanding clean cooking challenges in sub-Saharan Africa. Nature Sustainability (2023).