ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
Comparison of Respiratory Health Impacts Associated with Wood and Charcoal Biomass Fuels: A Population-Based Analysis of 475,000 Children from 30 Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Health risks associated with the production and usage of charcoal: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2023Pooled it
- Multidimensional energy poverty and childhood respiratory health across 26 low and lower middle income countries.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Factors associated with respiratory symptoms in communities living near to and away from the railway used for coal transportation in La Guajira, Colombia.International journal of occupational medicine and environmental health · 2025Article
- Risk factors for acute respiratory infection among children in Yemen: a hospital based matched case-control study.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Acute respiratory infections and its associated risk factors among children aged 6-59 months in Ghana: a multinomial regression analysis of the 2022 demographic and health survey.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Multidimensional energy poverty and acute respiratory infection in children under 5 years of age: evidence from 22 low-income and middle-income countries.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2023Article
- Primary health care situations in remote rural villages of the Savannakhet province, Lao People's Democratic Republic.Tropical medicine and health · 2022Article
- Household Microenvironment and Under-Fives Health Outcomes in Uganda: Focusing on Multidimensional Energy Poverty and Women Empowerment Indices.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Association of household air pollution with cellular and humoral immune responses among women in rural Bangladesh.Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) · 2022Article
- Magnitude and factors associated with post-tuberculosis lung disease in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe World Health Organisation reported that 45% of global acute respiratory infection (ARI) deaths in children under five years are attributable to household air pollution, which has been recognised to be strongly associated with solid biomass fuel usage in domestic settings. The introduction of legislative restrictions for charcoal production or purchase can result in unintended consequences, such as reversion to more polluting biomass fuels such as wood; which may increase health and environmental harms. However, there remains a paucity of evidence concerning the relative health risks between wood and charcoal. This study compares the risk of respiratory symptoms, ARI, and severe ARI among children aged under five years living in wood and charcoal fuel households across 30 low- and middle-income countries.
methodsData from children (
resultsIncreased odds ratios of fever (AOR: 1.07; 95% CI: 1.02-1.12) were observed among children living in wood cooking households compared to the use of charcoal. However, no association was observed with shortness of breath (AOR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.96-1.10), cough (AOR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.95-1.04), ARI (AOR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.96-1.11) or severe ARI (AOR: 1.07; 95% CI: 0.99-1.17). Within rural areas, only shortness of breath was observed to be associated with wood cooking (AOR: 1.08; 95% CI: 1.01-1.15). However, an increased odds ratio of ARI was observed in Asian (AOR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.04-1.51) and East African countries (AOR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.01-1.22) only.
conclusionOur population-based observational data indicates that in Asia and East Africa there is a greater risk of ARI among children aged under 5 years living in wood compared to charcoal cooking households. These findings have major implications for understanding the existing health impacts of wood-based biomass fuel usage and may be of relevance to settings where charcoal fuel restrictions are under consideration.
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