Evaluating the health benefits of transitions in household energy technologies in Kenya

Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are the leading cause of the burden of disease worldwide and have been causally linked with exposure to pollutants from domestic biomass fuels in developing countries. We used longitudinal health data coupled with detailed monitoring of personal exposure from more than two years of field measurements in rural Kenya to examine the reductions in disease from a range of interventions, including changes in energy technology (stove or fuel) and cooking location. Our estimates show that the suite of interventions considered here, on average reduce the fraction of times that infants and children below 5 yr are diagnosed with disease by 24–64% for ARI and 21–44% for acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI). The range of reductions is larger for those above 5 yr, and is highly dependent on the time-activity budget of individuals. These reductions due to environmental management in infant and child ALRI are of similar magnitude to those achieved by medical interventions.