Abstract View
Cooking Fuel Transitions in Rwanda and Impacts on Exposure to Particulate Matter (PM2.5)
CHERYL WEYANT, Joseph Pedit, Ashley Bittner, Leena Nylander-French, Sudhanshu Handa, Karin Yeatts, Zoe Frolking, Pamela Jagger, University of North Carolina
Abstract Number: 560
Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract
Exposure to pollutants from household cooking with solid fuels is a major cause of illness and mortality in the Global South. At the same time, many households are transitioning away from these fuels and adopting clean fuels, such and LPG, electricity, or pellets. However, these transitions are rarely closely observed outside of a trial or intervention. Here, a four-panel study, where households were surveyed over five years, was designed to study adoption of pellet stoves, but also captured unexpected observations of a rapid uptake of clean fuels, mostly LPG. In 2015, the first year of the panel, 8% of households used clean fuels (as primary, secondary, or tertiary fuels), and by 2019 41% were using a clean fuel. These households represent early stage adopters and measurements of their 24-hr exposure to PM2.5 (N = 658) and CO (N = 2,777) capture an important aspect of this transition and may help predict the impacts of ongoing fuel transitions, globally. We observe significant differences in exposure to PM2.5 and CO, depending on the primary fuel used for cooking, and also find an exposure trend that matches the “energy ladder” when accounting for multiple fuels. For example, households that used both LPG and charcoal were exposed to 50µgm−3 less PM2.5 per day compared to pure charcoal users (p = 0.008) and exposure by pure LPG users was even lower by 15µgm−3. We also observed that the adoption trends are dynamic; some households adopted a clean fuel for a short time, then switched back to solid fuels as their primary stove. However, most kept their clean fuel stove in the household and would use it as a secondary or occasional stove. This has exposure and health implications that may not be apparent when only considering primary fuel.