下面你将听到一段有关室内空气污染与健康的讲话。

Today, I am going to talk about household air pollution and health. Do you know that around 3 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fueled by kerosene, biomass and coal? Each year, close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves, paired with solid fuels and kerosene. Household air pollution causes non-communicable diseases including stroke, heart disease, and lung cancer. Close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 years of age are caused by particulate matter inhaled from household air pollution.
       The 3 billion people who still cook in open fires and inefficient stoves are most poor, and live in low-and middle-income countries. The inefficient cooking practices use fuels and technologies that produce high levels of household air pollution. Exposure is particularly high among women and young children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth. Without a substantial policy change, the total number of people lacking access to clean fuels and technologies will remain largely unchanged by 2030 and therefore hinder the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
       For example, fuel gathering increases the risk of health damage, consumes considerable time for women and children, limits other productive activities, such as income generation, and takes children away from school. In less secure environments, women and children are at risk of injury and violence during fuel gathering. Black carbon and methane emitted by inefficient stove combustion are powerful climate change pollutants. Many of the fuels and technologies used by households for cooking, heating and lighting present safety risks. The ingestion of kerosene is the leading cause of childhood poisonings, and a large fraction of the severe burns and injuries occurring in low-and middle-income countries are linked to household energy use for cooking, heating and/or lighting.
       Therefore, the WHO provides technical support to countries in their own evaluations and scale-up of health-promoting household fuels and technologies. The WHO is building capacity at the country and regional level to address household air pollution through direct consultations and workshops on household energy and health. To ensure healthy air in and around the home, the WHO’s Guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion provide health-based recommendations on the types of fuels and technologies to protect health as well as strategies for the effective dissemination and adoption of such home energy technologies. These build upon existing WHO outdoor air quality guidelines and WHO guidance on levels of specific indoor pollutants.
       Meanwhile, the WHO is using a Household energy database to monitor global progress in the transition to cleaner fuels and stove combinations in households. It supports assessments of disease burden from the household air pollution generated from the use of polluting fuel and technologies. Currently the database includes housing data from more than 1,100 surveys, representing 157 countries. It has been expanded to include information on household fuels and technologies used for heating and lighting. Besides, reductions in air pollution-related disease burden, both for household and outdoor, will be used to monitor the progress towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goal on Health.
       Ensuring universal access to clean fuel and technologies is a target of the Sustainable Development Goal on energy. Achieving this goal could prevent millions of deaths and improve the health and well-being of the billions of people relying on polluting technologies and fuels for cooking, heating and lighting. To better assess the health risks of household energy use, as well as differentiated gender impacts from household energy practices, the WHO is leading an effort with countries and surveying agencies to enhance, harmonize and pilot questions for national censuses and surveys. The effort will ensure that surveys better capture information on all the fuels and technologies used in the home for cooking, heating and lighting, as well as other impacts like time lost to fuel collection disaggregated by sex.