# Estimating the health benefits of national clean cooking fuel scale-up: A case study in Ecuador using national health data

> **NIH NIH F31** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2020 · $32,251

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Using data from a unique policy experiment in Ecuador, we propose to test whether a nationwide replacement
of traditional solid fuel stoves with clean fuels resulted in large-scale improvements in child health. One-third of
the world relies on burning solid fuels for their daily cooking and heating needs, leading to high levels of
household air pollution exposure (HAP) and more than four million premature deaths each year. High HAP
exposure is a leading cause of mortality for children under-5 globally, primarily from lower respiratory infections
(LRIs) like pneumonia. Each year, about one million children under-5 die from LRIs, 45% of which are
attributable to HAP exposure. Although HAP exposure can be addressed through interventions like cooking
with clean fuels like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or electricity, nationwide transitions to clean cooking fuels
are rare among low- and middle-income countries, due to high costs. The proposed study leverages (1) high-
quality cause-specific mortality data and (2) a rare policy experiment of a decades-long subsidy on cooking gas
to efficiently estimate the impacts of increases in clean cooking fuel use on child health.
 More than 90% of Ecuadorian households have transitioned from using wood-burning stoves to cooking
with LPG in the last four decades facilitated in part by large subsidies. This proposal employs public use data
on cooking fuel use and cause-coded mortalities from 1990 to 2014 to characterize the association between
clean cooking fuel use and the rate of under-5 LRI mortalities at the canton (county) level in Ecuador. We will
estimate averted mortalities from increased clean cooking and use this estimate to empirically validate the
existing method for predicting the health benefits of cleaner cooking from published exposure-response curves.
 Currently, governments in India, Cameroon, Ghana, and elsewhere are investing billions of dollars in
clean cooking each year. This innovative study is urgently needed to inform the potential child health gains
from scaling up the use of clean cooking fuels like LPG or other interventions that reduce HAP. Ongoing
programs may seek efficient and low-cost strategies to assess the health benefits of their LPG scale-up efforts;
here, we offer methods for both empirical and theoretical estimation. Our empirical evaluation of the health
benefits of a nationwide clean energy transition may also inspire greater evidence-based investment in clean
cooking fuels around the world.
 This study responds directly to NIEHS Strategic Plan goals, including, Theme 1 Goal 7 (Data Science
and Big Data, “Development of innovative data science and data-driven approaches”), Theme 2 Goal 3
(Evidence-Based Prevention and Intervention, “Research to develop, test, and validate evidence-based
prevention and intervention strategies, to reduce or avoid exposures and their resulting health impacts”), and
Theme 3 Goal 6 (Impact Evaluation, “Use of evaluatio...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9990377
- **Project number:** 1F31ES031833-01
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Carlos Francisco Gould
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $32,251
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-15 → 2021-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9990377

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9990377, Estimating the health benefits of national clean cooking fuel scale-up: A case study in Ecuador using national health data (1F31ES031833-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9990377. Licensed CC0.

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