Health outcome · disease
Acute respiratory infections (ARI)
Part of: Respiratory infections
Also: ARI, acute respiratory infection, acute lower respiratory infection, respiratory episodes
Short-lived infections of the airways, upper or lower, counted as episodes over a defined period. It is the outcome household surveys can collect by asking, which is why it appears throughout the literature on cooking fuel and child health.
Not reviewed by a clinician. This entry describes a disease or a symptom. We are introducing clinical review for pages of this kind; until that reviewer is in place, this page has been written and checked by the Coridum team but not reviewed by a clinician. It is general information and not medical advice. How this library is built is described in How we build this library.
Why it matters indoors
This is the outcome of the large household surveys, and its strengths and weaknesses both follow from how it is collected: a caregiver is asked whether the child had cough with fast or difficult breathing in the past two weeks. That can be done in tens of thousands of homes, which is how associations between cooking fuel and child respiratory illness were first mapped across whole countries.
What it cannot do is distinguish a cold from pneumonia. The recall period is short, the definition is symptomatic, and the person answering knows what fuel the household uses — so misclassification is certain and reporting bias is possible.
Coridum therefore treats a result under this slug as weaker evidence than one under a clinically or radiologically defined outcome, records the recall period and the case definition in the caveat, and does not merge such a result with one from a diagnosed series.
Indoor factors with evidence
| Factor | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | OR 3.39 (1.89–6.10) | — · home | hierarchical exposure-response model fitted to three household air pollution studies: long-term fine particle concentrations estimated for each household and related to acute lower respiratory infection in children, separately and pooled | F-1608 A hierarchical model for estimating the exposure- response c… (2020) | machine |
| Biomass fuel | OR 2.97 (1.38–3.87) | — · home | cross-sectional study of households with young children: the predominant cooking fuel related to acute respiratory infection in the two weeks before the survey, controlling for confounders | F-1697 Association of biomass fuel use with acute respiratory infec… (2014) | machine |
| Kerosene | OR 1.96 (0.78–4.89) | — · home | cross-sectional study of households with young children: the predominant cooking fuel related to acute respiratory infection in the two weeks before the survey, controlling for confounders | F-1698 Association of biomass fuel use with acute respiratory infec… (2014) | machine |
| Cookstoves | OR 0.56 (0.40–0.75) | — · kitchen | pooled analysis of three national household surveys: the place where the household cooks related to acute respiratory infection in children under five | F-1699 Geremew Place of food cooking is associated with acute respiratory i… (2020) | machine |
| Biomass fuel | OR 4.348 (1.632–11.580) | children under five · home | cross-sectional study of households in Ethiopia: fine particulate matter measured in the home alongside a questionnaire on fuel, kitchen arrangement and parental smoking, with acute respiratory infection in children under five recorded | F-1781 Association of Acute Respiratory Infections with Indoor Air … (2021) | machine |
| Solid fuel | OR 3.47 (1.31–9.21) | children under five · home | analysis of three rounds of the Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey: cooking fuel of the household recorded by interview and acute respiratory infection in children under five reported by the caregiver | F-1786 Shayo et al. Household Air Pollution from Cooking Fuels Increases the Ris… (2022) | machine |
| Solid fuel | OR 1.99 (1.11–3.56) | toddlers · home | analysis of the Demographic and Health Surveys of the Philippines and Indonesia: cooking fuel of the household recorded by interview and acute respiratory infection symptoms in toddlers reported by the caregiver | F-1795 Sulistyorini et al. Gendered Impact of Age, Toilet Facilities, and Cooking Fuels… (2022) | machine |
| Solid fuel | OR 1.09 (0.85–1.40) | toddlers · home | analysis of the Demographic and Health Surveys of the Philippines and Indonesia: cooking fuel of the household recorded by interview and acute respiratory infection symptoms in toddlers reported by the caregiver | F-1796 Sulistyorini et al. Gendered Impact of Age, Toilet Facilities, and Cooking Fuels… (2022) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Acute respiratory infections (ARI). Coridum Knowledge G-0161, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0161/