Effects of cooking smoke on prevalence of blindness in India by Vinod Mishra, Robert D. Retherford, and Kirk R. Smith. East-West Center Working Papers, Population and Health Series, No. 91. July 1997. 25 pp.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to measure the effect of cooking smoke from biomass fuels on prevalence of blindness among persons age 30 years and older in India. Data are from India's 1992-93 National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which is based on a nationally representative sample of 88,526 households comprising 514,827 individuals. Logistic regression is used to estimate the net effects of cooking smoke from biomass fuels (wood and dung) on prevalence of blindness after controlling for a number of potentially confounding variables.

Results show that persons living in households that primarily use biomass for cooking fuel have a considerably higher risk of developing partial or complete blindness than do persons living in households that use cleaner fuels. These results hold even when the effects of kitchen availability, house type, crowding, age, gender, urban/rural residence, education, religion, cast/tribe, and geographic region are statistically controlled. They also hold when the analysis is carried out separately for men and women and for urban and rural areas. These results indicate that the use of biomass fuels for cooking substantially increases the risk of blindness.