Energy use in the home is a vital and ubiquitous feature of human society. Energy is used for a wide variety of purposes, including cooking, space heating, lighting, small-scale income generation, various household tasks, and entertainment. Although all home energy use can impact health in various ways, globally by far the most important direct health risk is household air pollution caused by the incomplete combustion of fuel in low-efficiency stoves and lamps used for cooking, space heating and lighting. For the year 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that close to 3 billion people, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), lacked access to clean or modern energy services for cooking resulting in some 4.3 million premature deaths worldwide.
Clean air in and around the home is essential to a healthy life. WHO has a long tradition in synthesizing the evidence on health aspects of air quality and in preparing technical recommendations to ensure clean and healthy air both in the indoor and outdoor environments. This volume, the third in the series, following indoor air quality guidelines for selected pollutants and for dampness and mould, provides technical recommendations on the requisite performance of the fuels and technologies used in the home. These guidelines recognize the challenges faced by Member States when trying to implement household energy interventions, and provide guidance on the best approaches for securing rapid adoption and sustained use of low emission household energy technologies and fuels to protect health.
These new guidelines are particularly timely as the global community transitions toward a more sustainable and equitable future, guided by the post-2015 sustainable development framework. Currently, although there are many global and national initiatives aimed at ensuring access for all households to clean and modern energy, there is a lack of clarity about what technologies and fuels can be considered clean and safe.
Elimination of the substantial inequalities in energy access and air quality in and around the home that exist in the world today will bring substantial health and development benefits. These new guidelines will inform policy- and decision-makers in the health sector and in other sectors, as well as researchers and technical staff, when designing and implementing interventions to address this problem.
The guidelines were developed and peer-reviewed by scientists from all over the world and the recommendations were informed by a rigorous review of all currently available scientific knowledge on this subject. I would like to thank these experts for their work in developing a product which I believe can stimulate a major new effort to improve global health.
