Kurata Masamitsu, Hibiki Akira, Takahashi Kazushi, Matsumi Yutaka
Department of Economics, Sophia University, Tokyo 102-8554, Japan.
Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8576, Japan.
Toxics. 2025 Jun 17;13(6):509. doi: 10.3390/toxics13060509.
Health hazards caused by indoor air pollution (IAP) remain a global concern, especially in developing countries. IAP has complex mechanisms related to outdoor air pollution (OAP) and various other factors, and their relationship needs to be clarified to examine effective policies. We conducted an indoor and outdoor air monitoring survey in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas in Bangladesh, one of the countries with the most severe air pollution. The results show that IAP is more severe in urban households than in rural households, with a five-fold difference in daily indoor PM2.5 concentration between 117 μg/m3 and 22 μg/m3, respectively. Regression analysis reveals that IAP is strongly associated with OAP and is hardly affected by solid fuels used in well-ventilated outside kitchens. Our findings support the view that the mitigation of IAP in developing countries can be achieved not only through a transition to clean fuels, which often entails substantial costs, but also through more practical and accessible alternatives, such as the use of outdoor kitchens, electric fans, and careful management of behaviors such as indoor smoking and mosquito coil use.
室内空气污染（IAP）造成的健康危害仍然是一个全球关注的问题，尤其是在发展中国家。IAP具有与室外空气污染（OAP）及各种其他因素相关的复杂机制，需要厘清它们之间的关系以审视有效的政策。我们在空气污染最为严重的国家之一孟加拉国的城市、城郊和农村地区开展了一项室内外空气监测调查。结果显示，城市家庭的IAP比农村家庭更为严重，每日室内PM2.5浓度分别为117微克/立方米和22微克/立方米，相差五倍。回归分析表明，IAP与OAP密切相关，且几乎不受通风良好的室外厨房所使用的固体燃料的影响。我们的研究结果支持这样一种观点，即发展中国家减轻IAP不仅可以通过向清洁燃料过渡来实现（这通常需要高昂成本），还可以通过更实际、更可行的替代方法来实现，比如使用室外厨房、电风扇，以及谨慎管理室内吸烟和使用蚊香等行为。
