Web Release Date: November 16,
Geographical, Spatial, and Temporal Distributions of Multiple Indoor Air Pollutants in Four Chinese Provinces
National Institute for Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, People's Republic of China, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, Ministry of Public Health, Beijing, People's Republic of China, Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, India, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, and The World Bank, Washington, District of Columbia
Received for review April 18, 2005
Revised manuscript received September 4, 2005
Accepted October 6, 2005
Abstract:
Exposure to indoor air pollution from household energy
use depends on fuel, stove, housing characteristics, and
stove use behavior. We monitored three important indoor air
pollutants-respirable particles (RPM), carbon monoxide
(CO), and sulfur dioxide (SO2)-for a total of 457 household-days in four poor provinces in China (Gansu, 129 household-days; Guizhou, 127 household-days; Inner Mongolia, 65
household-days; and Shaanxi, 136 household-days), in two
time intervals during the heating season to investigate
spatial and temporal patterns of pollution. The two provinces
where biomass is the primary fuel (Inner Mongolia and
Gansu) had the highest RPM concentrations (719 
g/m3 in
the single cooking/living/bedroom in Inner Mongolia in
December and 351-661 g/m3 in different rooms and months
in Gansu); lower RPM concentration were observed in
the primarily coal-burning provinces of Guizhou and Shaanxi
(202-352 g/m3 and 187-361 g/m3 in different rooms
and months in Guizhou and Shaanxi, respectively). Inner
Mongolia and Gansu also had higher CO concentrations (7.4
ppm in the single cooking/living/bedroom in Inner Mongolia
in December and 4.8-11.3 ppm in different rooms and
months in Gansu). Among the two primarily coal-burning
provinces, Guizhou had lower concentrations of CO than
Shaanxi (1.2-1.8 ppm in Guizhou vs 2.0-13.3 ppm in different
rooms and months in Shaanxi). In the two coal-burning
provinces, SO2 concentrations were substantially higher in
Shaanxi than in Guizhou. Relative concentrations in
different rooms and provinces indicate that in the northern
provinces heating is an important source of exposure to
indoor pollutants from energy use. Day-to-day variability of
concentrations within individual households, although
substantial, was smaller than variation across households.
The implications of the findings for designing environmental
health interventions in each province are discussed.
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