Health impacts of cooking fuel choice in rural China

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of cooking fuel choice on the health of elderly people, asmeasured by activities of daily living, using micro survey data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2015. In contrast to previous studies, our focus on activities of daily living allows for a more comprehensive analysis of health outcomes than diagnoses or doctor visits. Propensity score matching and an endogenous switching regression model were used to address potential selection biases. We found a strong and positive effect of using non-solid cooking fuels on an individual's ability to cope with daily activities, with substantially greater effects on female and older respondents. Our results highlight the need to support energy transition in rural households to non-solid fuels for cooking. We also discuss potential policies to facilitate energy transition in rural China. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Energy consumption; Solid fuel; Health effects; Indoor air pollution; Environmental pollution

Published in

Energy Economics
2020, Volume: 89, article number: 104811

SLU Authors

• Rommel, Jens

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104811

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/105795