Cookstoves and health in the developing world

Many in the developing world rely on crude indoor cookstoves for heat and food preparation. The incidence of childhood pneumonia and early mortality in these regions points to the public health threat of these cultural institutions, but as Gautam Yadama and Mark Katzman show, simply replacing the stoves may not be the simple solution that many presume. In Fires, Fuel, and the Fate of 3 Billion, they examine the difficult issues at play and the following slideshow extracts some of their photographic and scientific discourse on cookstove use in rural India shines a beautiful light on this underrepresented social and public health issue.




Man showing his solar charging panels
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Unexpectedly, in midst of threadbare living, people adopt and invest in new technologies that they consider necessary. Living without electricity, but cannot do without a cell phone. Enter small general stores that supply solar panels for charging.

farmers with bullocks weeding their crop
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Providing access to clean, cost-effective energy systems for the poor is clearly a complex undertaking. Risk laden livelihoods dependent on rain-fed agriculture in drought prone regions complicate the dissemination and implementation of such innovations.

kids running around outdoor fires and smoke from charcoal making
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Making charcoal to meet the energy demands of a distant urban household takes its toll on the health of women and children. Children in the midst of rising smoke from large piles of burning invasive mesquite wood that mothers tend to all day.

night fires burning in homes
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Smoke billows from Missing tribal households, fires burning from morning until night, providing food and comfort. Missing households without these fires are not traditional.

woman on a bamboo platform cooking
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Tradition-bound, communities on the river islands of Brahmaputra, Assam, keep the wood burning. Women get household fuel from three significant sources: driftwood from the river, Kalmu –dried stalks of a riverbank weed, or wood from Casuarina trees from outlying islands.

Woman in polka dots carrying wood
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She endures the weight of a cultural expectation, compounded by household poverty, to shoulder a globally consequential burden: providing daily fuel for her household. They pour out of jungles carrying firewood to heat their homes, to cook hot meals for their families. Photograph by Mark Katzman.

Gautam N. Yadama is the author and Mark Katzman the photographer of Fires, Fuel, and the Fate of 3 Billion: The State of the Energy Impoverished. Gautam N. Yadama, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, and a Faculty Scholar in Washington University’s Institute of Public Health. His research transcends disciplinary boundaries to better understand and address complex energy, environment, health, and sustainability problems central to social wellbeing of the poor. Mark Katzman has traveled the globe as a distinguished commercial photographer, on assignments from such publications as Time, Newsweek, Audubon, Backpacker, Food and Wine, Forbes, and Fortune, and international companies. Named one of the 200 Best Advertising Photographers in the World in 2012 by Luerzer’s Archive, Katzman is considered an international expert on the photogravure process.

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Image credit: All photos copyright Mark Katzman.

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