Social, Ecological, and Health Benefits of Clean Cooking

Excerpt

The link between pollution and health is well established and evidence increasingly highlights the importance of pollution as a risk factor for premature death. The recently published Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health estimates that pollution (including ambient air, household air, ozone, water, chemical, and occupational) is the cause of an estimated 9 million premature deaths globally in 2015, representing 16% of total mortality (Landrigan et al. 2017). Household air pollution (HAP) is a major contributor to pollution-related mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and is attributed to 2.6 million premature deaths and 40% of child under-5 deaths due to lower respiratory infections, according to the IHME global burden of disease 2016 estimates (Gakidou et al. 2017). …