Description of Collaborative Activity: |
The World Health Organization lists indoor air pollution (IAP) from primitive household cooking fires in developing countries as the fourth leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The poor of the world typically use biomass (wood, crop residues or dung) or coal as fuel to cook and heat their homes resulting in high levels of IAP. Morbidity and mortality from IAP primarily affect poor women and children. For example, IAP is a major cause of acute pneumonia in children under five; in adult non-smoking women, IAP causes diseases as varied as blindness from cataracts to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to lung and laryngeal cancer. Although there has been decades of efforts to use improved stove technology to reduce IAP, the success of these efforts has been limited due to a lack of awareness of the problem, limited research into the health risks and the logistical challenges of solving a problem that affects almost 3 billion people on the planet. The National Institutes of Health led a 2 day workshop to present the state of the science on the health impacts of indoor air pollution and to determine critical research gaps that if addressed, will permit implementation of effective strategies to reduce the impact of indoor air pollution and to improve human health for poor women and children everywhere. |
NIH Participating Institutes/Centers/Office of the Director: |
FIC, NEI, NHLBI, NICHD, OD |
