Clean Household Energy for Cooking in Low- and Middle- Income Settings: An Interdisciplinary Case Study Project to Advance Knowledge Translation

Approximately 3 billion people rely on solid fuels and kerosene for their cooking needs. Exposure to household air pollution from burning these fuels accounts for approximately 3 million premature deaths a year. Clean fuels – such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ethanol, biogas, electricity, and certain compressed biomass fuels – have the potential to alleviate much of this health burden, but to achieve health impact, uptake of the interventions must be widespread and sustained. Many clean fuel intervention programs are being implemented in low- and middle-income settings around the world, but few of these efforts have been evaluated. The Clean Cooking Implementation Science Network supported by the NIH and partners developed a set of eleven case studies, describing: LPG scale-up initiatives in Cameroon, Ghana, Indonesia, and Peru; biogas programs in Cambodia and East Africa; compressed biomass projects in Rwanda and China; alcohol fuel programs in Ethiopia and Nigeria; and a case in Ecuador...