How children in the developing world benefit from switching to LPG

The survival of three billion people, or close to half of the world’s population (41%), depends on cooking with polluting solid fuels (e.g. wood, dung, crop waste, coal, and charcoal) and kerosene stoves. It is primarily poor rural women and their children who are exposed to high levels of household air pollution (HAP) as a result of cooking with these inefficient fuels.5 The intention of this report is to raise awareness about the health benefits for children when transitioning from cooking with solid fuels to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a clean cooking fuel.

Estimates of annual death from air pollution vary, from an estimated seven million2 to 4.6 million.3 Household air pollution represents half of the air pollution burden; between 3.8 and 1.6 million deaths are due to indoor cooking fires.2,3 In India and China, an estimated 30% of outdoor air pollution is from smoke from household fires,6 signaling a need for clean fuels to not only improve indoor air, but to improve the quality of outdoor air as well.