Evidence base for household air pollution and health
Our Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses are helping to understand the effects of air pollution and identifying where interventions can be made to improve health outcomes.
The research group has led on a number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses summarising the burden of exposure to household air pollution through biomass combustion in relation to a number of health outcomes including: childhood pneumonia, adult ALRI, adverse pregnancy outcomes, cataracts, cervical cancer, lung cancer and tuberculosis.
As well as contributing to the comparative risk assessment for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study, the systematic reviews have provided intervention effect estimates for several important preventive strategies and tools. This includes the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia & Diarrheoa [GAPPD] and the Lives-Saved Tool which is used to prioritise interventions for child and maternal survival and which we have been working on with the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) since 2009.
Members
Professor Nigel Bruce (lead reviewer and consultant to GAPPD and CHERG), Professor Daniel Pope (lead reviewer and meta-analyst), Dr Mukesh Dherani (lead reviewer).
Funding
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Publications/dissemination
Kirk R. Smith, Nigel Bruce, Kalpana Balakrishnan, Heather Adair-Rohani, John Balmes, Zoe Chafe, Mukesh Dherani, H. Dean Hosgood, Sumi Mehta, Daniel Pope, Eva Rehfuess and others in the HAP CRA Risk Expert Group. Millions Dead: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean? Methods Used in the Comparative Risk Assessment of Household Air Pollution. Annu Rev Public Health 2014; 35:1-27.
Bruce N, Dherani M, Das J, Balakrishnan K, Adair-Rohani H, Bhutta Z, Pope D. Control of household air pollution for child survival: estimates for intervention impacts. BMC Public Health 2013; 13(Suppl 3): S8.
Hosgood DI, Wei H, Saptoka A, Choudhury I, Bruce NG, Smith KR, et al. Household coal use and lung cancer: systematci review and meta-analysis of case control studies, with emphasis on geographic variation. International Journal of Epidemiology. 2011. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyq259.
Pope D, Mishra V, Thompson L, Siddiqui AR, Rehfuess EA, Weber M, Bruce NG. Systematic review and meta-analyses of risk of low birth weight and stillbirth associated with indoor air pollution in developing countries. Epidemiologic Reviews 2010; 32: 70-81.
Dherani M, Pope D, Mascarenhas M, Smith KR, Weber M, Bruce N. Indoor air pollution from unprocessed solid fuel use and pneumonia risk in children aged under five years: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Bull WHO 2008; 86: 390-398.