Assessment of Carbon Monoxide from Biomass Burning in Rural Households in Adamawa State, Northeastern Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Indoor air pollution (IAP) kills 4 million people worldwide, particularly in developing countries where many people rely heavily on biomass for energy. Globally, 3 billion people use biomass fuel for cooking and heating. Burning biomass emits carbon monoxide (CO) and other pollutants.
Hence, IAP is the leading cause of non-communicable diseases in the world. Women and children suffer most of the burden of IAP because they are usually responsible for cooking.
In a rural, poor community in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, I assessed risks to human health from biomass burning. I used structured questionnaires to interview heads-of-households about their household composition, cooking habits, cooking fuel, and kitchen area.
Using a CO data logger, I also measured CO emissions during cooking for 16 households with indoor kitchens. The number of doors, windows, and gaps were counted and measured to assess ventilation and subjectively categorized into a ventilation index.
My results showed that adult women (n =134) were mainly responsible for cooking in the Bole community, and mean number of times residents cooked per day was 2.25 ± 0.55. The primary fuel source for all but four households was wood.
Most households had outdoor cooking areas (n = 101). Mean CO reading (111.9 ± 41.4 ppm) exceeded World Health Organization recommended safe levels. Ventilation appeared to be important for reducing CO concentrations during cooking.
INTRODUCTION
Global air quality is worsening every day due to both outdoor and indoor pollution. Much attention is directed to IAP presently, as it is considered a leading cause of respiratory diseases that cause the premature deaths of 4 million people around the world (WHO, 2016). Indoor air pollution is the emission of harmful substances in living area.
Sources of IAP include materials used in furnishings, semi-volatile, and volatile compounds released by building materials, insecticides, and biomass fuels (mainly cow dung, straws, crop residues, woods, and twigs) (Zhang & Smith, 2003).
The largest contributor of IAP in developing country is biomass burning. Biomass burning is the combustion of living and dead vegetation (Cole, 2001). This process emits pollutants, which gets trapped when people cook indoors hence promotes respiratory diseases (WHO, 2016). About 7.7% of global mortality is due to IAP (WHO, 2016).
In middle- and low-income countries, 10% of mortality is caused by indoor pollution. Whereas the same risk factor is 0.2% in developed countries (WHO, 2016).
IAP emitted from the burning of biomass poses a greater risk to human health than any other source of pollution. Hence, mortality and morbidity in developing countries are heavily attributed to burning biomass fuel.
The reason is some people, most especially women in the developing countries use substandard stoves that produces smoke, which gets trapped when used in areas with poor ventilation (Bruce, et al., 2015). Chronic exposure to smoke lowers the body’s immunity and eventually lead to respiratory diseases (Bruce, Perez-Padilla, & Albalak, 2000).
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