Energy used in dwellings is an important target for actions to avert climate change.
Properly designed and implemented, such actions could have major co-benefits for public
health. To investigate, we examined the effect of hypothetical strategies to improve
energy efficiency in UK housing stock and to introduce 150 million low-emission household
cookstoves in India. Methods similar to those of WHO's Comparative Risk Assessment
exercise were applied to assess the effect on health that changes in the indoor environment
could have. For UK housing, the magnitude and even direction of the changes in health
depended on details of the intervention, but interventions were generally beneficial
for health. For a strategy of combined fabric, ventilation, fuel switching, and behavioural
changes, we estimated 850 fewer disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and a saving
of 0.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO(2)), per million population in 1 year (on
the basis of calculations comparing the health of the 2010 population with and without
the specified outcome measures). The cookstove programme in India showed substantial
benefits for acute lower respiratory infection in children, chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease, and ischaemic heart disease. Calculated on a similar basis to the UK case
study, the avoided burden of these outcomes was estimated to be 12 500 fewer DALYs
and a saving of 0.1-0.2 megatonnes CO(2)-equivalent per million population in 1 year,
mostly in short-lived greenhouse pollutants. Household energy interventions have potential
for important co-benefits in pursuit of health and climate goals.