Association between indoor air pollution and cognitive function of older adults in India: a cross-sectional multilevel analysis

Association between indoor air pollution and cognitive function among nationally representative sample of middle‐aged and older adults in India—A multilevel modelling approach

“…Almost one‐third (30.6%) of the participants were living in households with indoor air pollution. This was much lesser than the previous studies conducted in similar settings 19–21 …”

“…Our study also found that certain individual‐ and household‐level factors such as increasing age, female gender, no formal schooling, separated/widowed/divorced, living in rural and poor socio‐economic conditions, consumption of alcohol and smoking, underweight, sleep problems and poor self‐rated health stood out as independent risk factors for cognitive dysfunction in the adjusted model. Several studies in low middle‐income settings have also underscored these factors contribute independently to the risk of cognitive dysfunction among older adults 19–21,24–27,33–35 . Aging 36 and female gender 37 are well‐established risk factors of cognitive dysfunction, the reason being, aging is associated with increased neurodegeneration and female gender might be linked with the greater effect of apolipoprotein ε4 allele on amyloid pathology leading to faster cognitive decline.…”

“…This scheme was introduced to bring out the IAP among the poor rural households by incentivizing LPG gas connections. Policymakers and other stakeholders must reorganize their efforts to expand and improve such programs for refining the health status of people living in rural households 20 . Public health efforts were focusing on effective interventions such as public awareness through health education and behavior change communication, improving the household environments through proper construction of houses with adequate ventilation, change in fuel patterns, adequate designing for stoves, etc.…”

“…Similar finding was emphasized by other research works from India and other low middle-income settings. [19][20][21]24,25 These findings have reiterated the fact that the indoor air pollution due to solid fuel use or lack of ventilation might act as an important contributory factor for poor cognitive functioning among middle-aged and older adults. This shows the need to switch into cleaner form of fuels at the households.…”

The impact of emissions from an essential oil diffuser on cognitive performance

“…Among possible candidates, only CO 2 has been investigated extensively, 7,8,19,20 yet the findings in the literature are mixed: the cognitive effects of elevated CO 2 concentrations vary significantly between studies 21 and no definite conclusion is available about whether CO 2 is a pollutant or only an indicator of ventilation. Besides CO 2 , recent evidence from studies on Chinese, 22 Indian, 23 Irish, 24 and Mexican 25 elder populations suggests that indoor air pollution and particulate matter (PM) in particular from combustion-based sources such as open fires and biofuel have a detrimental impact on cognitive function. Nevertheless, the potential cognitive impact of many other common non-combustion indoor pollutant sources, which may involve exposure to various types of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), is mostly unknown.…”