Respiratory Diseases are public health concern worldwide. The diseases have been associated with air pollution especially indoor air pollution from biomass fuel burning in developing countries. However, researches on pollution levels and on association of respiratory diseases with biomass fuel pollution are limited. A study was therefore undertaken to characterize the levels of pollutants in bi...

During the past twenty years, the use of wood has become popular as an alternative to conventional home heating fuels. Part of this movement has been due to uncertainty about the availability of fossil fuels. About ten percent of space heating in urbanized areas of the northern United States is from wood burning, with up to fifty percent in some .smaller, rural towns (42, 63, 75, 85). Wood is o...

BACKGROUND India contributes 24% of the global annual child deaths due to acute respiratory infections (ARIs). According to WHO, nearly 50% of the deaths among children due to ARIs is because of indoor air pollution (IAP). There is insufficient evidence on the relationship between IAP from the use of solid fuels and incidence of life threatening respiratory illnesses (LTRI) in children in India...

The present prospective study was conducted at two urban slums of Delhi, Kusumpur Pahari and Kathputly Colony, in the peak winter season from November 1994 through February 1995. We studied 642 infants to determine the incidence of acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) and its relationship to indoor air pollution due to fuel used for cooking (wood or kerosene). In Kusumpur Pahari, there were...

Supplement Aims and Scope or limited or prevented to help protect human health and our environment. In a field where the literature is ever-expanding, practitioners and researchers increasingly need to have ready access to up-to-date, high-quality scholarly articles on areas of ongoing interest in environmental health. This supplement aims to address this need by presenting contemporary article...

The influence of traffic-related air pollution on indoor residential exposure is not well characterized in homes with high natural ventilation in low-income countries. Additionally, domestic allergen exposure is unknown in such populations. We conducted a pilot study of 25 homes in peri-urban Lima, Peru to estimate the effects of roadway proximity and season on residential concentrations. Indoo...

Among the major sources of indoor air pollution are combustion by-products from heating and cooking. Concern is increasing that use of polluting heating and cooking sources can increase cancer risk. In Canada, most cooking and heating currently relies on electricity or natural gas, but, in the past, and still in some areas, coal and wood stoves were used for heating and gas and wood for cooking...

European Concerted Action "lndoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Man ". Report No. I I: Guidelines for Ventilation Requirements in Buildings. Office for Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 1992. These Guidelines recommend the ventilation required to obtain a desired indoor air quality in a space. The first step is to decide the air quality aimed for in the ventilated space. A c...

BACKGROUND Although poverty is widely recognized as an important risk factor for tuberculosis (TB) disease, the specific proximal risk factors that mediate this association are less clear. The objective of our study was to investigate the mechanisms by which poverty increases the risk of TB. METHODS Using individual level data from 198,754 people from the 2006 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) ...

INTRODUCTION Indoor air pollution from biomass fuel use has been found to be responsible for more than 1.6 million annual deaths and 2.7% of the global burden of disease. This makes it the second biggest environmental contributor to ill health, behind unsafe water and sanitation. METHODS The main objective of this study was to investigate if there was any association between use of bio-fuels ...