Cooking with biomass fuels and mortality among Chinese elderly people: A prospective cohort study

Abstract

This study used data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (n = 9765, age 65+) to investigate the impact of biomass fuels on the mortality of the Chinese elderly population. The association between biomass fuels and mortality was examined using a Cox proportional hazards model. We evaluated the difference in risk of death between those who switched fuel types from biomass to clean fuels and from clean to biomass fuels versus those who did not during the follow-up period.Participants who used biomass fuels had a higher risk of death than participants who used clean fuels (HR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01-1.17). For participants who switched cooking fuel types during the follow-up period, switching from biomass to clean fuels significantly reduced the risk of death (HR = 0.78, 95% CI: 0.67-0.91), while no evidence of an association between switching from clean to biomass fuels and risk of death was found (p > 0.05). Interactions and subgroup analyses indicated that effect estimates were greater for women and non-smokers. Biomass fuels may be associated with a higher risk of death among Chinese elderly. Research measuring personal exposure levels to indoor air pollution caused by biomass fuels combustion is required to confirm our results.

Association of cooking fuel use with risk of cancer and all-cause mortality among Chinese elderly people: a prospective cohort study

“…Similarly, another study of 55,687 participants among China’s rural population revealed that participants who cooked with solid fuels, primarily biomass, had a greater death risk for all causes (HR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.02–1.26) than clean fuel users (Qiu et al 2021 ). Same as the previous researches (Yu et al 2018 ; Chan et al 2019 ; Xu et al 2022 ), our study demonstrated that converting from unclean to clean fuels can potentially reduce the death risk, suggesting that cooking with unclean fuels is an independent risk contributor to health problems in seniors. However, no evidence was observed for the correlation between converting from clean to unclean fuels and the death risk for cancer and all causes, as compared with consistently using clean fuels.…”

“…There were two studies from the same population as our study, one focused on exploring the association between biomass fuels (firewood/straw, charcoal) and mortality risk (Xu et al 2022 ), and the other focused on solid fuels (coal, charcoal, firewood, wood, and animal dung) (Shen et al 2021 ). However, these two studies focused only on all-cause mortality.…”

Evidence-Based Policy Making: Analysis and Policy Recommendations for how the Philippines can manage a Cost-Effective Clean Energy Transition

“…Wang et al (2020) assessed biomass as an energy source in G7 countries, nding that although the use of biomass has supported development, it has increased their ecological footprints and reducing usage would improve environmental quality. Additionally, Xu et al (2022) found that in China there was a higher risk of death for people who used biofuels in their homes in comparison with clean fuels, which was largely down to the exposure to indoor air pollution. Secondly, Solar PV is becoming the most competitive renewable energy source in terms of cost (IRENA 2022), and maintenance costs are low already as solar technologies are designed to work e ciently and not require constant attention.…”