Smoking & Solid Fuel Use in Homes in China Projected to Cause Millions of Deaths

Research from the US predicts that if smoking and solid fuel use in homes continues in China they will cause a total of 83 million deaths between 2003 and 2033 and that only large-scale interventions stand a chance of reducing this number.

China is already home to 16 of the planet's 20 most heavily polluted cities -- a noxious consequence of its double-digit economic growth. Now researchers have worse news for the nation's beleaguered lower classes: The air inside their homes is up to 10 times worse than the prevailing gloom outside.

If current levels of smoking and biomass and coal fuel use in homes continues, between 2003 and 2033 there will be an estimated 65 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 18 million deaths from lung cancer in China, accounting for 19% and 5% of all deaths in that country during this period.

The research is the work of a team from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in Boston, Massachusetts, and is published online on October 4th and in the October 25th print issue of The Lancet. The quantitative study is the first to analyse the combined effects of smoking and use of household fuel on COPD, lung cancer and tuberculosis (TB).

The study has been published in,"Effects of smoking and solid-fuel use on COPD, lung cancer, and tuberculosis in China: a time-based, multiple risk factor, modelling study."Hsien-Ho Lin, Megan Murray, Ted Cohen, Caroline Colijn, and Majid Ezzati. The Lancet Early Online Publication, 4 October 2008 DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61345-8

The abstract is available here