Inflammation. 2012 Apr;35(2):671-83.
Neutrophilic inflammatory response and oxidative stress in premenopausal women chronically exposed to indoor air pollution from biomass burning.
Banerjee A, Mondal NK, Das D, Ray MR.
Department of Experimental Hematology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S. P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata, 700 026, India
The possibility of inflammation and neutrophil activation in response to indoor air pollution (IAP) from biomass fuel use has been investigated. For this, 142 premenopausal, never-smoking women (median age, 34 years) who cook exclusively with biomass (wood, dung, crop wastes) and 126 age-matched control women who cook with cleaner fuel liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were enrolled. The neutrophil count in blood and sputum was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in biomass users than the control group. Flow cytometric analysis revealed marked increase in the surface expression of CD35 (complement receptor-1), CD16 (F(C)γ receptor III), and β(2) Mac-1 integrin (CD11b/CD18) on circulating neutrophils of biomass users. Besides, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay showed that they had 72%, 67%, and 54% higher plasma levels of the proinflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6, and interleukin-12, respectively, and doubled neutrophil chemoattractant interleukin-8. Immunocytochemical study revealed significantly higher percentage of airway neutrophils expressing inducible nitric oxide synthase, while the serum level of nitric oxide was doubled in women who cooked with biomass.
Spectrophotometric analysis documented higher myeloperoxidase activity in circulating neutrophils of biomass users, suggesting neutrophil activation. Flow cytometry showed excess generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by leukocytes of biomass-using women, whereas their erythrocytes contained a depleted level of antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD). Indoor air of biomass-using households had two to four times
more particulate matter with diameters of <10 μm (PM(10)) and <2.5 μm (PM(2.5)) as measured by real-time laser photometer. After controlling potential confounders, rise in proinflammatory mediators among biomass users were positively associated with PM(10) and PM(2.5) in indoor air, suggesting a close
relationship between IAP and neutrophil activation. Besides, the levels of neutrophil activation and inflammation markers were positively associated with generation of ROS and negatively with SOD, indicating a role of oxidative stress in mediating neutrophilic inflammatory response following chronic inhalation of biomass smoke.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH, Vol.2, No.1, 2012
Assessment of Biomass Fuel Resource Potential And Utilization in Ethiopia: Sourcing Strategies for Renewable Energies
Dawit Diriba Guta, Department of Economics and Technological Change, Centre for development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn
In recent years, there has been renewed interest on renewable biomass based energies. This is due to growing environmental benign, energy security concern and spiraling price of fossil fuel. In the case of poor economies like Ethiopia quality of life and energy consumption are tidily conjoined. This article assessed biomass fuel resource potential of Ethiopia and also investigated strategies for its modern utilization, with particular emphasis on sourcing options for cleaner energies. With proper sourcing strategies, biomass supplies green and cleaner renewable energy for wider human, industrial and transportation services.
There is, however, no systematic study on strategies for efficient use of biomass fuel resource in Ethiopia. Abundant and untapped availability, user as well as environmental friendliness, applicability for wider fuel need purposes, competitiveness in terms of cost of production, its rural poverty linkages and multitude of other factors make biomass based fuels prior energy source of Ethiopia.
Hence, innovative investment on renewable biomass based fuels (e.g. biogas, bioethanol and biodiesel) and broad distribution of improved fuel stove technologies to rural and urban households, as well as energy conservation technologies for industries and service sector should be promising areas for policies targeting green growth. Hence, developing appropriate institutions and technologies for renewable energies sourcing from biomass is invaluable.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (the Alliance) is seeking qualified teams of researchers to fill key gaps in the existing evidence on the use of traditional cookstoves and open fires as they relate to child survival, with a focus on the following:
- Adverse pregnancy outcomes, including low birth weight, pre-term birth, and birth defects; and/or
- Severe respiratory illness, including pneumonia and other acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) in children under five years of age.
Of particular interest are studies that:
- address health outcomes responsible for a major proportion of infant and child mortality on a global scale, and
- are based in potential Alliance priority countries/regions. Potential countries/regions include the Alliance’s potential focus [East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda), Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Viet Nam], and active countries (Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Peru), as well as India and China, where a wealth of cookstove-related research and implementation efforts have taken place.
As much as $800,000 will be available for studies funded under RFA 12-1. The Alliance expects to fund up to two studies of roughly two years duration, at $100,000 to 200,000 per year, dependent on the scope and the scale of the proposals. Opportunities for cost sharing and leveraging funds are actively encouraged.
Combating Deforestation? – Impacts of Improved Stove Dissemination on Charcoal Consumption in Urban Senegal, 2011. Ruhr Economic Papers #306.
Gunther Bensch and Jörg Peters
With 2.7 billion people relying on woodfuels for cooking in developing countries, the dissemination of improved cooking stoves (ICS) is frequently considered an effective instrument to combat deforestation particularly in arid countries. This paper evaluates the impacts of an ICS dissemination project in urban Senegal on charcoal consumption using data collected among 624 households. The virtue of our data is that it allows for rigorously estimating charcoal savings by accounting for both household characteristics and meal-specific cooking patterns. We find average savings of 25 percent per dish. In total, the intervention reduces the Senegalese charcoal consumption by around 1 percent.
In-home solid fuel use and cardiovascular disease: a cross-sectional analysis of the Shanghai Putuo study, Environmental Health 2012, 11:18 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-11-18
Mi-Sun Lee (mslee@hsph.harvard.edu); et al.
Although recent research evidence suggests an association between household air pollution from solid fuel use, such as coal or biomass, and cardiovascular events such as hypertension, little epidemiologic data are available concerning such exposure effects on cardiovascular endpoints other than hypertension. We explored the association between in-home solid fuel use and self-reported diagnoses of cardiovascular endpoints, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and diabetes.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, March 2012, 9(4), 1097-1110
Review: A Profile of Biomass Stove Use in Sri Lanka
Myles F. Elledge 1,* , Michael J. Phillips 1 , Vanessa E. Thornburg 1 , Kibri H. Everett 1 and Sumal Nandasena 2
1 RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
2 National Institute of Health Sciences, Ministry of Health, Kalutara 12000, Sri Lanka
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
A large body of evidence has confirmed that the indoor air pollution (IAP) from biomass fuel use is a major cause of premature deaths, and acute and chronic diseases. Over 78% of Sri Lankans use biomass fuel for cooking, the major source of IAP in developing countries. We conducted a review of the available literature and data sources to profile biomass fuel use in Sri Lanka. We also produced two maps (population density and biomass use; and cooking fuel sources by district) to illustrate the problem in a geographical context.
The biomass use in Sri Lanka is limited to wood while coal, charcoal, and cow dung are not used. Government data sources indicate poor residents in rural areas are more likely to use biomass fuel. Respiratory diseases, which may have been caused by cooking emissions, are one of the leading causes of hospitalizations and death. The World Health Organization estimated that the number of deaths attributable to IAP in Sri Lanka in 2004 was 4300.
Small scale studies have been conducted in-country in an attempt to associate biomass fuel use with cataracts, low birth weight, respiratory diseases and lung cancer. However, the IAP issue has not been broadly researched and is not prominent in Sri Lankan public health policies and programs to date. Our profile of Sri Lanka calls for further analytical studies and new innovative initiatives to inform public health policy, advocacy and program interventions to address the IAP problem of Sri Lanka.
Respirology, Volume 17, Issue 3, pages 395–401, April 2012
Air pollution and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
FANNY W.S. KO*, DAVID S.C. HUI
Improving ambient air pollution and decreasing indoor biomass combustion exposure by improving home ventilation are effective measures that may substantially improve the health of the general public.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an important disease worldwide in both high-income and low-income countries. By the year 2020, it has been estimated that COPD will rank fifth among the conditions with a high burden to society and third among the most important causes of death for both genders worldwide.4 The economic burden of COPD on the society is enormous. It is thus important to understand the environmental factors that are contributing to this great burden. Air pollution is closely related to both the development and exacerbation of COPD. In this review, we will discuss the impact of both outdoor and indoor air pollution on the development and exacerbation of symptoms of COPD.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, online March 2012
What makes people adopt improved cookstoves? Empirical evidence from rural northwest Pakistan
Inayatullah Jan. Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan
Large dependence of the world population on biomass fuels for domestic energy consumption is one of the major anthropogenic causes of deforestation worldwide. The use of biomass in inefficient ways in rural areas increases fuelwood demand of a household. Development of the improved biomass stove programs in the 1970s has been one of the efforts to reduce burden on biomass resource base through reliable and efficient methods of energy consumption.
However, despite having multiple economic, social, environmental, and health benefits; the improved stove dissemination programs failed to capture worldwide recognition. A wide array of socio-cultural, economic, political, and institutional barriers contributes to the low adoption rate of such programs. Drawing on field work surveys in rural northwest Pakistan, this paper provides empirical evidence of individual, household, and community level variables that play a vital role in the adoption of improved cookstoves.
The study is based on primary data collected from 100 randomly selected households in two villages of rural northwest Pakistan. Using regression analysis, the study depicts that education and household income are the most significant factors that determine a household willingness to adopt improved biomass stoves.
The study concludes that the rate of adoption could substantially be improved if the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a greater role in overcoming the social, economic, cultural, political, and institutional barriers to adopting improved cooking technologies.
A rough guide to clean cookstoves, March 2012.
Differ Group
This is a rough introduction to clean cookstoves and was initiated in the process of evaluating three clean cookstove investment cases.
The analysis provides an overview of clean cookstove types and features, identifies the most imoportant cookstove attributes for ensuring adoption and salability, and discusses testing methods for measuring their performance.
This analysis provides the background for an upcoming Differ report, where we identify and analyse the most critical factors for the profitability of clean cookstove projects.
Social Science Research, Available online 17 March 2012
Women’s Status and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: A Quantitative Cross-National Analysis
Christina Ergas , Richard York. Department of Sociology University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1291
Global climate change is one of the most severe problems facing societies around the world. Very few assessments of the social forces that influence greenhouse gas emissions have examined gender inequality. Empirical research suggests that women are more likely than men to support environmental protection. Various strands of feminist theory suggest that this is due to women’s traditional roles as caregivers, subsistence food producers, water and fuelwood collectors, and reproducers of human life. Other theorists argue that women’s status and environmental protection are linked because the exploitation of women and the exploitation of nature are interconnected processes.
For these theoretical and empirical reasons, we hypothesize that in societies with greater gender equality there will be relatively lower impacts on the environment, controlling for other factors. We test this hypothesis using quantitative analysis of cross-national data, focusing on the connection between women’s political status and CO2 emissions per capita. We find that CO2 emissions per capita are lower in nations where women have higher political status, controlling for GDP per capita, urbanization, industrialization, militarization, world-system position, foreign direct investment, the age dependency ratio, and level of democracy.
This finding suggests that efforts to improve gender equality around the world may work synergistically with efforts to curtail global climate change and environmental degradation more generally.
