Dasgupta Susmita, Huq Mainul, Khaliquzzaman M, Pandey Kiran, Wheeler David
Development Research Group, World Bank, NW, Washington DC 20433, USA.
Health Policy Plan. 2006 Nov;21(6):444-58. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czl027. Epub 2006 Oct 9.
In this paper, we investigate individuals' exposure to indoor air pollution. Using new survey data from Bangladesh, average hours spent by members of households in the cooking area, living area and outdoors in a typical day are combined with the estimates of pollution concentration in different locations in order to estimate exposure. We analyse exposure at two levels: differences within households attributable to family roles, and differences across households attributable to income and education. Within households, we relate individuals' exposure to pollution in different locations during their daily round of activities. We find high levels of exposure for children and adolescents of both sexes, with particularly serious exposure for children under 5 years. Among prime-age adults, we find that men have half the exposure of women (whose exposure is similar to that of children and adolescents). We also find that elderly men have significantly lower exposure than elderly women. Across households, we draw on results from a previous paper, which relate pollution variation across households to choices of cooking fuel, cooking locations, construction materials and ventilation practices. We find that these choices are significantly affected by family income and adult education levels (particularly for women). Overall, we find that the poorest, least-educated households have twice the pollution levels of relatively high-income households with highly educated adults. Our findings further suggest that young children and poorly educated women in poor households face pollution exposures that are four times those for men in higher income households organized by more highly educated women. Since infants and young children suffer the worst mortality and morbidity from indoor air pollution, in this paper we consider measures for reducing their exposure. Our recommendations for reducing the exposure of infants and young children are based on a few simple, robust findings. Hourly pollution levels in cooking and living areas are quite similar because cooking smoke diffuses rapidly and nearly completely into living areas. However, outdoor pollution is far lower. At present, young children are only outside for an average of 3 hours per day. For children in a typical household, pollution exposure can be halved by adopting two simple measures: increasing their outdoor time from 3 to 5 or 6 hours per day, and concentrating outdoor time during peak cooking periods.
在本文中，我们研究了个人接触室内空气污染的情况。利用来自孟加拉国的新调查数据，将家庭成员在烹饪区域、居住区域和户外度过的典型一天的平均时长，与不同地点的污染浓度估计值相结合，以估算接触量。我们从两个层面分析接触情况：家庭内部因家庭角色导致的差异，以及家庭之间因收入和教育导致的差异。在家庭内部，我们将个人在日常活动过程中在不同地点接触污染的情况联系起来。我们发现，男女儿童和青少年的接触水平都很高，5岁以下儿童的接触情况尤为严重。在青壮年成年人中，我们发现男性的接触量是女性的一半（女性的接触量与儿童和青少年相似）。我们还发现，老年男性的接触量明显低于老年女性。在家庭之间，我们借鉴了之前一篇论文的结果，该论文将家庭之间的污染差异与烹饪燃料选择、烹饪地点、建筑材料和通风方式联系起来。我们发现，这些选择受到家庭收入和成年人教育水平（尤其是女性）的显著影响。总体而言，我们发现最贫困、受教育程度最低的家庭的污染水平是相对高收入且成年人受教育程度高的家庭的两倍。我们的研究结果进一步表明，贫困家庭中的幼儿和受教育程度低的女性面临的污染接触量是由受教育程度更高的女性组织的高收入家庭中男性的四倍。由于婴幼儿因室内空气污染遭受的死亡率和发病率最高，在本文中我们考虑了降低他们接触量的措施。我们关于降低婴幼儿接触量的建议基于一些简单而可靠的研究结果。烹饪区域和居住区域的每小时污染水平相当相似，因为烹饪烟雾会迅速且几乎完全扩散到居住区域。然而，室外污染要低得多。目前，幼儿每天平均仅在户外待3小时。对于典型家庭中的儿童，采取两项简单措施可将污染接触量减半：将他们的户外时间从每天3小时增加到5或6小时，并在烹饪高峰期集中户外时间。
