Cookstove air pollution: Emission profiles and subclinical effects of exposure

描述（由申请人提供）：大约有30亿人使用传统的、低效的、通风不良的室内炉灶来满足基本的能源需求。这些炉灶排放的空气污染物主要由世界上最贫穷的人接触，占全球疾病负担的4.5%。这种形式的燃烧也是大气中吸收光的碳的第二大来源。为了解决这一问题，一个重点是发展固体燃料燃烧技术（即改进或清洁燃烧的炉具），使其燃料效率更高、负担得起和污染更少。自上个世纪出现分散式供水/卫生系统以来，设计和推广更清洁的炉具技术对人类和环境健康可能有最大的好处。普遍的假设是，任何燃烧更清洁的炉子（相对于传统的明火）都能改善健康；然而，这一假设尚未得到严格的检验。改进后的炉灶在污染物排放方面差别很大。因此，该项目力求开发可信和具有代表性的实验室数据，作为检验改良炉灶假说和提高我们应对这一对全球健康的巨大威胁的能力的第一步。我们提出两个具体目标。第一个目标是全面了解传统炉灶和改进炉灶排放的气体和微粒污染物。这一目标将编制一份更完整的住宅炉灶燃烧排放的有毒和强迫气候的污染物清单；人们对这些排放物知之甚少，而且很可能与特征明确的燃烧源（如机动车辆）不同。这一目标将为风险评估和气候影响模型提供更可靠的数据，为更好地设计炉子提供信息，并将有助于我们解释本研究（目标2）和其他研究中观察到的健康影响。排放清单将以开源格式在网上提供，供研究人员、政策制定者和其他利益相关者使用。第二个目标是开展一项对照人体暴露研究，以调查暴露于流行炉灶技术排放物的急性亚临床影响。我们将研究心肺健康的标志物（血压、心率变异性、增强指数、呼出的一氧化氮和全身炎症、氧化应激、凝血和血小板活化的标志物）在短期暴露于国际标准组织（ISO）公布的不同级别的五种不同类型的炉所产生的排放的反应；一些ISO级别类别将导致空气污染浓度大大超过发达国家的监管水平。因此，在这些新颁布的标准中引入代表每一级的改进炉灶是否会产生有意义的健康效益尚不清楚。这是第一个量化心肺健康指标与广泛炉灶技术暴露之间关系的研究。这项研究将为未来的炉灶项目指明方向，同时为“清洁到什么程度才算足够干净？”

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Approximately three billion people use traditional, inefficient and poorly vented indoor cookstoves to meet basic energy needs. Exposure to air pollutant emissions from these cookstoves, experienced primarily by the world's poorest people, accounts for 4.5% of the global burden of disease. This form of combustion is also the second leading source of light-absorbing carbon in the atmosphere. To address this problem, one focus has been to develop solid-fuel combustion technologies (i.e., improved or cleaner-burning stoves) that are more fuel efficient, affordable, and less polluting. The design and dissemination of cleaner stove technologies could have the single largest benefit to human and environmental health since the emergence of distributed water/sanitation systems in the previous century. The prevailing hypothesis is that any cleaner-burning stove (relative to traditional, open fires) will improve health; however, this hypothesis has not been rigorously tested. Improved stoves can vary widely in terms of pollutant emissions. This project, therefore, seeks to develop credible and representative laboratory data as a first step to test the improved stoves hypothesis and to improve our ability to address this massive threat to global health. We propose two specific aims. The first aim will develop a comprehensive profile of gaseous and particulate pollutants emitted from traditional and improved cookstoves. This aim will develop a more complete inventory of the toxic and climate-forcing pollutants emitted from residential cookstove combustion; these emissions are poorly understood and are likely different from well-characterized combustion sources (e.g., motor vehicles). This aim will provide more credible data for risk assessments and climate impact models, inform better stove design, and will aid our interpretation of health effects observed here (Aim 2) and in other studies. The emissions inventory will be made available online in an open-source format for use by researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. The second aim is to conduct a controlled human exposure study to investigate acute, subclinical effects of exposure to emissions from prevalent cookstove technologies. We will investigate markers of cardiorespiratory health (blood pressure, heart rate variability, augmentation index, exhaled nitric oxide, and markers of systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, coagulation, and platelet activation) in response to short-term exposures from five different stove types producing emissions that fall into various Tier categories promulgated by the International Standards Organization (ISO); several of the ISO Tier categories will result in air pollution concentrations that greatly exceed regulatory levels i the developed world. Thus, whether the introduction of improved stoves representing each of the Tiers within these newly-promulgated standards will produce meaningful health benefits is unclear. This is the first study to quantify the relationship between markers of cardiorespiratory health and exposure to a broad range of stove technologies. This research will inform future directions for stove programs while providing needed insight into the question, "How clean is clean enough?"