Risk assessment for indoor air pollution from urban households in a sub-tropical climate

Abstract

In India indoor air pollution is an important cause of mortality and morbidity, especially among the poor and most vulnerable populations. It increases the risk of acute respiratory infections, adverse pregnancy outcomes, prenatal mortality, asthma, otitis media, tuberculosis, cataracts, blindness, tuberculosis etc., but the ill impact of indoor air pollution is directly and more pronounced to respiratory problems and diseases. This paper seeks to identify the risk factors associated to in-door air pollution and examines the linkages between respiratory disease symptoms (cough, phlegm, breath-lessness, wheezing, blood in sputum etc.) and house type (kutcha /semi Pucca houses), type of fuel used (biomass/LPG) and kitchen locations (indoor kitchen with partition, indoor kitchen without partition, multi-purpose room, open air) in different income house-holds of Aligarh city. In this study 2,101 women respondents belonging to different income groups were interviewed with the help of well structured questionnaire. Data was collected regarding housing conditions, type of fuel used, place of cooking, type of exposure and occurrence of respiratory diseases. On the basis of collected information risk factors were identified and symptomatic linkages of respiratory diseases and house type, type of fuel used and kitchen locations were established. Analysis has shown that symptomatic cases of respiratory diseases were significantly higher among those living in kutcha /semi- Pucca houses, using biomass fuels and cooking in a multi-purpose room.