Interventions for mitigating indoor‐air pollution in Nigeria: a cost‐benefit analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the costs and benefits of interventions to reduce indoor‐air pollution arising from the use of solid biomass fuels for cooking and heating in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approach – The authors use cost‐benefit analysis and assess two intervention scenarios: providing access to improved stoves; and providing access to cleaner fuels (liquefied petroleum gas – LPG – burners). Both intervention scenarios are compared with the current situation, i.e. the “business as usual” scenario where there is no attempt to reduce the present level of exposure to indoor‐air pollution from solid fuel use.Findings – The result shows that the cost‐benefit ratio of the stove intervention is 0.388 while that of LPG is 0.371.Practical implications – While providing access to cleaner fuels (LPG) has a larger health impact on the population than improved stoves, the low income level of the participants will favor the stove option because of the lower recurrent cost which is usually...