That air pollution kills is an established fact by now. Dr. Christopher Sola Olopade, Professor of Medicine, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Chicago, U.S. — who has done extensive research on the threat from indoor air pollution in Nigeria — says that overall exposure to household air pollution accounts for about four million premature deaths every year globally; of these, a million occur in India.
Dr. Olopade was in Delhi to speak on the threat of indoor air pollution. He reflected upon how things could be made better in rural India, where the medium of cooking is often biomass/kerosene. These media expose women and children to unwanted smoke and health hazards.
Nigerian study
His first randomised controlled study, he told The Hindu , looked at the impact of household air pollution on pregnant women.
“This study was done so by transitioning pregnant Nigerian women who cooked with kerosene and biomass to ethanol instead. Urban and rural households in India too face similar issues,” he said.
Dr. Olopade received the American College of Chest Physicians Humanitarian Award (2010) for his work to protect women and children from the hazards of exposure to indoor pollution related to the use of biomass for cooking.
Explaining how harmful air pollution can be in terms of health impact, he said: “Exposure to air and household air pollution increased the risk of dying from heart attacks, having strokes, developing emphysema without smoking and lower respiratory tract infection especially in children less than 5 years old.”
He added that the adverse effect of indoor air pollution among women/children is worse when compared to men.
The risks
“Women bear the brunt of the exposure because they are more likely to be the cooks at home. Children, because of their dependency on their mothers before going to school, are exposed to toxic air over long periods and also have a high risk of developing pneumonia and asthma. Depending on exposure levels, men are also vulnerable to the same health challenges.”
While these are the problems, Dr. Olopade said that talking about the problem was not enough. There is an urgent need for people to taking theinitiative at the individual and country levels to ensure that air quality improves and stays good, he said.
“There are several steps that we can take which include eliminating cooking with firewood, dung and kerosene. Rural electrification programmes will also eliminate this threat. India is actually forward-looking in promoting the use of liquid petroleum gas for cooking and for looking into rural electrification programmes,” he said.
bindu.p@thehindu.co.in
