Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In 2000, 189 countries signed on the millennium goal of reducing the indoor air pollution. However, after decades of economy development, China still has more than 57.6 millions of its citizens living under exposure to high level of indoor air pollution because of using solid fuel as a primary source for cooking purpose. Research has shown solid fuel usage is associated with increased mortality. However, there is a lack of credible evidence on the causal impact of solid fuel use on other health outcomes especially on the context of low-to-middle-income countries. Moreover, the existing evidence largely relies on aggregate data. Using nine waves of data from China Nutrition and Health Survey (CNHS) between 1989 and 2011, this paper studies the health impact of in-home solid fuel usage on working age population in China. Using a fixed effects model, this paper estimates for each additional year’s usage of solid fuel for cooking is associated with a 0.1% (p=0.097) increase of chance for becoming hypertension. Each addition years of solid fuel usage for cooking is also associated with a 0.6 mm Hg (p=0.024) increase in diastolic blood pressure and a 1.2 mm Hg (p=0.36) increase in systolic blood pressure. The findings suggest that solid fuel usage may increase cardiovascular disease risk among Chinese working population.