Indoor biomass burning contributes to significant particulate matter exposure, chronic human health burden, and an economic drain in rural households

Biomass burning for cooking and heating produces a toxic cocktail of particulate matter (PM) and gaseous pollutants, resulting in chronic lung issues.

Around 0.5-0.6 million deaths occur annually in India, mainly in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, from exposure to indoor air pollutants, indicating the multifaceted healthcare, economic and environmental burden in households, where biomass burning prevails.

And yet, ground-based indoor exposure data are sparse, there is poor awareness about air pollution, and clean energy initiatives are lagging.

We hypothesize that biomass combustion and PM exposure is related to specific pollutant classes (triggers) and their synergistic interactions, which trace early metabolic changes in plasma to diagnose asthma, lung aging, and chronic pulmonary obstructions.

We aim to 1) conduct socioeconomic and health surveys and develop real-time indoor pollutant monitoring using automated sensor networks, 2) analyze organic compounds and oxidative metals that cause pulmonary stress, and 3) identify novel biomarkers in plasma and combine this with integrative transcriptomics, epidemiological and environmental chemical data.

The proposed synergistic and integrated work packages on PM characteristics and metabolomics will establish causality with exposure posing a breakthrough for early clinical diagnosis.

This strategy will help healthcare measures and mitigation plans advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 7 for better air quality and health.