Challenges in estimating the health effects of biomass smoke-Response to Sverre Vedal and Steven J. Dutton: Wildfire air pollution and daily mortality in a large urban area

摘要

Health effects of biomass combustion smoke are attaining increasing and justified interest due to the convincing evidence on the more general urban particles, recent occurrence of wildfire smoke episodes in different parts of the world, and concerns on the use of wood and other sources of biomass in cooking and domestic heating. The latter has been estimated to cause 1.6 million cases of premature mortality and approximately 3% of the burden of disease globally (e.g. Desai et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2004; WHO, 2006a). Following a recommendation based on these estimates World Health Organization is currently continuing development of guidelines for air quality, with specific emphasis (among other issues) on biomass smoke from indoor combustion of fuels (WHO, 2006b).