Indoor smoke from solid fuels : assessing the environmental burden of disease at national and local levels (original) (raw)

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the World Health Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Dotted lines on maps represent approximate border lines for which there may not yet be full agreement. In this guide SFU is defined as: the household combustion of biomass (such as dung, charcoal, wood, or crop residues), or coal. Worldwide, approximately 50% of all households and 90% of rural households utilize solid fuels for cooking or heating. In simple stoves, biomass fuels emit substantial amounts of health-damaging pollutants, including respirable particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3 butadiene, and polyaromatic compounds such as benzo(a)pyrene (Smith, 1987). Depending on their quality, coal fuels may also emit sulphur oxides and 1.3 Other sources of indoor air pollution This guide stresses the importance of SFU in households, since this is the single most important situation by which people become exposed to air pollution. However, other