Intervention
Improved cookstoves
Part of: Source control
Also: improved cookstove, improved stove, clean cookstove, cookstove intervention, improved cooking stove
A stove designed to burn solid fuel more completely or to vent its smoke outside, replacing an open fire or a simple stove. The improvement is judged by what reaches the room, not by what the design promises in a laboratory.
What it is
Two different things travel under this name. One improves combustion — a better-shaped chamber, forced air, a fan — so that the same wood produces less smoke. The other moves the smoke: a chimney or a flue takes it out of the room without changing how well the fuel burns. A stove can do either, both, or neither well.
That is why trials of improved stoves so often disappoint against expectation. A laboratory rating measures the stove; the household measures the kitchen, where the stove is used alongside an open fire for some tasks, the chimney is not maintained, and the fuel is whatever is dry. The reductions recorded in homes are real but smaller than the bench figures, and the exposure often remains far above any guideline.
An improved stove is a step on the ladder, not the top of it: clean fuel removes the combustion instead of improving it.
What the studies report
12 of 37 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Respiratory infections | ratio 0.54 (0.30–0.98) | infants · home | trial of an improved stove intervention against traditional cooking: incidence of acute respiratory infection in infants followed in both arms, with subgroups by sex and by household size | F-1514 Enyew Impact of improved stove intervention on infant acute respir… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | difference 48 | — · cooking area | randomised controlled trial in rural Rwanda: households received a water filter and an improved cookstove, with 24-hour fine particulate matter measured in the cooking area of intervention and control households and drinking water quality measured alongside | F-1742 Assessing the Impact of Water Filters and Improved Cook Stov… (2014) | machine |
| Pneumonia | RR 1.01 (0.91–1.13) | children under five · home | cluster randomised controlled trial in rural Malawi (Cooking and Pneumonia Study): households received two cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves and solar panels, with pneumonia in children under five ascertained by integrated management of childhood illness criteria over two years | F-1758 Mortimer et al. A cleaner burning biomass-fuelled cookstove intervention to … (2017) | machine |
| Lower respiratory infections (LRI) | OR 0.95 (0.89–1.02) | children under five · home | cluster randomised trial in Northwest Ethiopia: households received an improved biomass-fuelled stove, with repeated acute lower respiratory infection in children under five ascertained over several follow-up rounds | F-1775 Adane Effect of improved cookstove intervention on childhood acute… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | median 0.74 | — · personal exposure of pregnant women | multi-country randomised controlled trial in pregnant women (HAPIN): households were assigned a liquefied petroleum gas stove and fuel, an improved biomass stove, or usual cooking, with personal carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter measured after the intervention | F-1778 A cluster randomised trial of cookstove interventions to imp… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 19 | primary cooks · personal exposure of the primary cook in the household | quasi-experimental evaluation of two improved cookstove programmes in Lusaka, Zambia: 24-hour personal exposure to carbon monoxide (747 measurements) and PM2.5 (90) of primary cooks at baseline in the cool season of 2019 and at endline in the warm season, with difference-in-differences and generalised least squares models of log-transformed exposure against stove group, season, neighbourhood, cooking location, ventilation, stove-influenced hours and expenditure | F-0711 Impacts of Improved Cookstove Interventions on Personal Expo… (2025) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 14 | primary cooks · personal exposure of the primary cook in the household | quasi-experimental evaluation of two improved cookstove programmes in Lusaka, Zambia: 24-hour personal exposure to carbon monoxide (747 measurements) and PM2.5 (90) of primary cooks at baseline in the cool season of 2019 and at endline in the warm season, with difference-in-differences and generalised least squares models of log-transformed exposure against stove group, season, neighbourhood, cooking location, ventilation, stove-influenced hours and expenditure | F-0713 Impacts of Improved Cookstove Interventions on Personal Expo… (2025) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | sibling rows carry the control and BioLite groups | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman in the household | sub-study of a randomised cookstove trial in rural Ghana: 24-hour ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring in pregnant women with concurrent personal carbon-monoxide monitoring, analysed by multilevel linear regression with a random intercept for each monitoring session and adjustment for awake hours and the peri-waking period | F-0731 Quinn Ambulatory monitoring demonstrates an acute association betw… (2017) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | only four monitoring sessions in this group; sibling rows carry the control and gas groups | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman in the household | sub-study of a randomised cookstove trial in rural Ghana: 24-hour ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring in pregnant women with concurrent personal carbon-monoxide monitoring, analysed by multilevel linear regression with a random intercept for each monitoring session and adjustment for awake hours and the peri-waking period | F-0732 Quinn Ambulatory monitoring demonstrates an acute association betw… (2017) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | — | children under 5 years · home | longitudinal analysis inside the Cooking and Pneumonia Study, a cluster-randomised trial of cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves in rural Malawi: repeated 24-hour personal carbon monoxide (5521 measurements) and carboxyhaemoglobin (4065 measurements) in children under five against pneumonia episodes, with mixed models adjusted for time, age, sex and smokers in the household | F-0850 PhD Pneumonia and Exposure to Household Air Pollution in Childre… (2020) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | median 0.34 | children under 5 years · home | longitudinal analysis inside the Cooking and Pneumonia Study, a cluster-randomised trial of cleaner-burning biomass cookstoves in rural Malawi: repeated 24-hour personal carbon monoxide (5521 measurements) and carboxyhaemoglobin (4065 measurements) in children under five against pneumonia episodes, with mixed models adjusted for time, age, sex and smokers in the household | F-0851 PhD Pneumonia and Exposure to Household Air Pollution in Childre… (2020) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | difference 5.8 | — · kitchen | study of six improved cookstoves in rural western Kenya: 48-hour kitchen carbon monoxide and PM2.5 measured with the traditional three-stone fire as the reference, with fuel weighing, stove-use monitoring and an acceptability survey | F-0936 Pilishvili et al. Effectiveness of Six Improved Cookstoves in Reducing Househo… (2016) | 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. Improved cookstoves. Coridum Knowledge G-0114, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0114/