**Chapter 7** Indoor Air Pollution

*Abebaw Addisu*

## **Abstract**

Indoor air pollution becomes a public health hazard across the world. It originates from different sources such as the use of unclean fuel in developing countries for cooking, heating, and lighting purposes. Their use results in incomplete combustion. Carbon monoxide and other toxic gases are the primary result of incomplete combustion and can cause respiratory tract problems. Children and women who spent a large portion of their time indoors are the most vulnerable subpopulation.

**Keywords:** indoor pollutants, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, unclean fuel, respiratory tract infections

### **1. Introduction**

Indoor air pollution, also known as household air pollution is a state of increased concentration of air pollutants within and around a building or structure at a degree high enough to harm human beings and the ecosystem at large.

Air pollutants can arise from indoor activities like cooking, heating, and lighting using unclear fuels such as firewood, charcoal, animal dung, and kerosene [1]. The incomplete combustion of those fuels results in the production of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides [2]. Other indoor activities like the application of insecticides, pesticides, air conditioners, and tobacco smoke can also contribute a large share of indoor particulate matter concentration [3]. Particulate matter is the complex mixture of dust, soot, smoke, and liquid droplet that suspends in the air in a small amount that can be inhalable.

Exposure to indoor air pollutants makes susceptible individuals breathe in those pollutants and activate as much as 15 sensory nerve receptors in the respiratory tract system that leads to reflex mechanism [4]. Pollutants that have a diameter of less than 5 micro-meter are candidates to reach alveoli by passing against physiological and mechanical barriers of the respiratory tract system [5]. After inhalation and availability in distal respiratory receptors, the pollutants cause acute respiratory infection most commonly pneumonia among young children and exacerbate asthma, chronic lung disease, and cancer among adults [6].

Although air pollution becomes a global concern that affects the population of the world in all spheres, indoor air pollution is a particular health risk for low-income countries [7]. Groups of sub-population such as infants, women, elderly, person with chronic disease, and urban residents who spent a large proportion of their time indoors, are at higher risk when compared to the general population [8].

Special locations including schools, homes, and workplaces (wood processing industries and cement factories) are sites with greater concerns. Ventilation and meteorological parameters such as temperature and humidity play a crucial role in the concentration of indoor air pollutants.

Indoor air pollution becomes a public health concern that results in a broad array of health problems ranging from reversible to irreversible damage to the body system. So, it is important to discover the source from which pollutants arise and develop skills on how to measure and monitor indoor pollutants to combat against its adverse health effect.
