What is the single largest source of air pollution exposure in India? You would be perhaps surprised to find that the answer, with a near consensus in the published scientific literature, is neither transportation nor stubble burning.

Approximately 2.8 billion people cook with solid fuels. Research has focused on the health impacts of indoor exposure to fine particulate pollution. Here, for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease project (GBD 2010), we evaluate the impact of household cooking with solid fuels on regional population-weighted ambient PM2.5 pollution (APM2.5). The researchers estimated the proportion and concentrations of APM2.5 attributable to household cooking with solid fuels (PM2.5-cook) for the years 1990, 2005, and 2010 in 170 countries; and associated ill-health.