The Regional Impacts of Cooking and Heating Emissions on Ambient Air Quality and Disease Burden in China

Exposure to air pollution
is a major risk factor globally and particularly
in Asia. A large portion of air pollutants result from residential
combustion of solid biomass and coal fuel for cooking and heating.
This study presents a regional modeling sensitivity analysis to estimate
the impact of residential emissions from cooking and heating activities
on the burden of disease at a provincial level in China. Model surface
PM2.5 fields are shown to compare well when evaluated against
surface air quality measurements. Scenarios run without residential
sector and residential heating emissions are used in conjunction with
the Global Burden of Disease 2013 framework to calculate the proportion
of deaths and disability adjusted life years attributable to PM2.5 exposure from residential emissions. Overall, we estimate
that 341 000 (306 000–370 000; 95% confidence
interval) premature deaths in China are attributable to residential
combustion emissions, approximately a third of the deaths attributable
to all ambient PM2.5 pollution, with 159 000 (142 000–172 000)
and 182 000 (163 000–197 000) premature
deaths from heating and cooking emissions, respectively. Our findings
emphasize the need to mitigate emissions from both residential heating
and cooking sources to reduce the health impacts of ambient air pollution
in China.