DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i02.054

Pages: 574-580

Indoor air pollution from burning of traditional biomass fuel such as wood, dung and agricultural wastes for daily household cooking is a major problem in rural India. Indoor fuels include solid, liquid, gas and electricity. Solid fuels include biomass and coal. Liquid fuel includes kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Gas fuels include methane and natural gas. Biomass fuel refers to any plant or animal-based material that is deliberately burned by humans as fuel such as wood, twigs, dried animal dung, charcoal, grass or agricultural crop residues. Indoor smoke from biomass burning is the most important health hazard due to gases or particulates causing respiratory impairment if inhaled in adequate concentration over a long period of time. In the present study we compared the pulmonary function tests (PFT) in two groups of healthy nonsmoking rural women as a study group having 50 women more than 30 years of age exposed with biomass fuel and another control group of 50 women using LPG as cooking fuel. Our study showed significantly decreased PFT like FVC (2.34 ± 0.38), FEV1 (2.03 ± 0.37), FEV1/FVC% (87.43 ± 11.64) and PEFR (4.33 ± 1.09) in biomass user than LPG user group (FVC=2.51 ± 0.31, FEV1=2.21 ± 0.26, FEV1/FVC% =88.21 ± 6.4 and PEFR=4.86 ± 0.79). Chronic exposure ≥15 years for biomass fuel showed the significant reduction in FVC (2.21 ± 0.3 versus 2.36 ± 0.23), FEV1 (1.91 ± 0.29 versus 2.08 ± 0.18), FEV1/FVC (87.33 ± 13 versus 88.49 ± 7.27) and PEFR (4.1 ± 1.09 versus 4.55 ± 0.69) values. Thus awareness about the harm of biomass fuels, regular monitoring of health and use of smokeless chulha, proper kitchen ventilation and easily availability of cleaner fuel such as LPG are necessary objects to reduce health hazards of biomass fuel.