A Review on Association of Air Pollution and Biomass Fumes on Respiratory System
CE01-CE04
Correspondence
Dr. Pravallika Pagadala,
PhD Scholar, Department of Physiology, Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College, Kolar-563101, Karnataka, India.
E-mail: pravallikapagadala5@gmail.com
World Health Organization (WHO) reported that indoor air pollution is one of the ten avoidable risk factors. People believe that air pollution is an outside urban phenomenon, but some of the uppermost concentration occurs in the opposite situation i.e., countryside and in the house. Such levels are due to the high proportion of countryside/less developed countries population relies on unprocessed biomass fuels (like wood, crop residues, dung) which have high pollutant emission factors, in simple small scale burning devices such as household cooking. Domestic cooking is one among the major activities of the rural Indian house wives. Cooking is carried out in an enclosed space with poor ventilation and inefficient stoves. Long duration of exposure to biomass fuel mostly affects women, young girls and children. In most of the developing countries biomass fuel is used for cooking. Girls start cooking at very early age and spend minimum 4-6 hours daily in kitchen for almost 30-40 years which is equivalent to 60,000 hours of exposure. Indoor air pollution occurs primarily by usage of biomass fuels which attributes 1.5-2 million deaths/year.