Seasonal differences in household air pollutants and determinants of personal air pollution exposure in rural women cooking and heating with biomass fuels in the Tibetan Plateau

Cooking and heating with traditional biomass stoves impacts climate and population health. The very limited information on personal exposures to biomass smoke and its major determinants limits intervention evaluation and the estimation of dose-response relationships and attributable disease burden We enrolled 204 Chinese women in Sichuan, China who cooked with biomass, and measured their seasonal 48-h personal exposures to PM2.5 and CO and 48-h kitchen PM2.5, elemental and organic carbon (EC/OC), and CO and NOx concentrations in the baseline assessment of an energy intervention study. We measured daily outdoor PM2.5 and collected information on demographics, household energy use and ventilation, among others. Multivariate regression models were used to assess the environmental, household, and individual determinants of women’s PM2.5 exposure. Women’s geometric mean 48-h exposure to PM2.5 was 80 μg/m3 (95% CI: 74, 87) in summer and twice as high in winter (169 μg/m3, 95% CI: 150, 190). OC/EC and NOx ratios...