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Children in Mongolia are exposed to harmful levels of household air pollution HAP due to a high reliance on coal for indoor cooking and heating. This study aims to assess the association between HAP and child health outcomes, in a birth cohort from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. A composite HAP measure was created using information on cooking and heating fuels and behaviours collected as part of a randomised control trial assessing the impact of swaddling on child health.
Linear and Cox proportional hazard model were used to assess the association between HAP and child health outcomes at each time point, adjusting for child, maternal and environmental confounding factors. An increased risk of pneumonia was observed with an increasing HAP score adjusted hazard ratio: 1.
HAP exposure was shown to negatively impact child health sustainably over 3 years. There are implications for development of appropriate public health policies to mitigate HAP exposure throughout Mongolia and similar Central Asia settings.
Household air pollution HAP from cooking, heating and lighting using solid biomass fuel wood, dung, charcoal, and crop residue and coal, causes significant morbidity and mortality and is a global public health concern in low- and middle-income countries LIMCs 1. Evidence on the impact of air pollution on health is still expanding. Based on the current evidence, globally there are 3. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to HAP due to often spending a greater amount of time within the home than other household members 5.
