Abstract
BACKGROUND: Half of the world's population is exposed to household air pollution from biomass burning. This study aimed to assess the relationship between respiratory symptoms and biomass smoke exposure in rural and urban Nepal.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study of adults (16+ years) in a rural population (n = 846) exposed to biomass smoke and a non-exposed urban population (n = 802) in Nepal. A validated questionnaire was used along with measures of indoor air quality (PM2.5 and CO) and outdoor PM2.5.
RESULTS: Both men and women exposed to biomass smoke reported more respiratory symptoms compared to those exposed to clean fuel. Women exposed to biomass were more likely to complain of ever wheeze (32.0 % vs. 23.5%; p = 0.004) and breathlessness (17.8% vs. 12.0%, p = 0.017) compared to males with tobacco smoking being a major risk factor. Chronic cough was similar in both the biomass and non-biomass smoke exposed groups whereas chronic phlegm was reported less frequently by participants exposed to biomass smoke. Higher PM2.5 levels (≥2 SDs of the 24-hour mean) were associated with breathlessness (OR = 2.10, 95% CI 1.47, 2.99) and wheeze (1.76, 1.37, 2.26).
CONCLUSIONS: The study suggests that while those exposed to biomass smoke had higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms, urban dwellers (who were exposed to higher ambient air pollution) were more at risk of having productive cough.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 92 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Environmental Health |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 6 Nov 2014 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 6 Nov 2014 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank all the participants for taking part in this study. We are extremely grateful to the local research staff (Kundan Kumar Jha, Naniram Timalsina, Anita Dhungana, Bishnumaya Adhikar, Indra Kumar Bohara, Bhola Dhungana, Pratichha Dali and Rajeev Shrestha) for their help in sampling and Krishna Kunwar, Lava Dhungana, Pradip Raj Dali and Bigyan Kafle for their help in the selection of the sampling locations and co-ordinating with the house members. We are also grateful to George Henderson for his help with arranging the sampling equipment.
Keywords
- respiratory symptoms
- breathlessness
- phlegm
- solid fuel
- household air pollution
Access to Document
- The effect of exposure to biomass smoke on respiratory symptoms in adult rural and urban Nepalese populations
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.