Source · material
Solid fuel
Part of: Indoor fuel combustion
Also: solid fuels, solid fuel use, unclean fuel, polluting fuel
Any fuel burned in the home in solid form — wood, crop residue, dung, charcoal and coal. The category groups them because what decides the exposure is the way a solid burns in a simple appliance, not the difference between one solid and another.
What it is
Solid fuel is the category epidemiology works in, and it exists because the household surveys that measure exposure ask one question: does this home cook or heat with something solid, or with gas or electricity? The answer divides populations cleanly, which is why so much of the evidence on cooking and health is reported for solid fuel as a whole rather than for wood or coal separately.
The grouping is defensible physically as well. A solid fuel burns at its surface, in an appliance that rarely controls air supply, so combustion is incomplete and the emission is dominated by what incomplete combustion produces: fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide and unburnt organic material.
Where a study does separate them, the differences matter — coal adds sulfur and trace metals that biomass does not — and Coridum keeps the narrower slug wherever the study named one.
What the studies report
12 of 88 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lung cancer | OR 2.26 (1.36–3.77) | — · home | systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies published between 2015 and 2025 on indoor air pollution and primary lung cancer: 38 studies with 475,565 participants, maximally adjusted estimates pooled with random effects models and study quality assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale | F-1342 Rusoiu et al. Indoor Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Risk-A Systematic Revie… (2026) | machine |
| Lung cancer | HR 1.66 (1.37–2.02) | — · home | systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies published between 2015 and 2025 on indoor air pollution and primary lung cancer: 38 studies with 475,565 participants, maximally adjusted estimates pooled with random effects models and study quality assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale | F-1343 Rusoiu et al. Indoor Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Risk-A Systematic Revie… (2026) | machine |
| Respiratory infections | prevalence 13.56 (11.88–15.25) | children under five · home | systematic review and meta-analysis of acute respiratory infection among children under five exposed to indoor air pollution, with subgroup analysis, meta-regression, sensitivity analysis and publication bias tests | F-1513 Indoor air pollution exposure and acute respiratory infectio… (2025) | machine |
| Atopic dermatitis (eczema) | OR 1.158 (1.051–1.276) | — · home | systematic review and meta-analysis of indoor fuel use and atopic dermatitis: effect sizes pooled across studies with quality assessment, several studies contributing more than one effect size | F-1518 Lang No conclusive link between indoor fuel use and atopic dermat… (2025) | machine |
| — | OR 1.76 (1.56–1.98) | adults of Jiangsu Province · home | population-based case-control study of oesophageal cancer in Jiangsu Province, China, from 2003 to 2010: 2969 cases and 8019 controls analysed with unconditional logistic regression against six household air pollution sources individually and as an unweighted and a weighted sum, with semi-Bayesian adjustment and subgroups by sex and smoking status | F-1346 Association between indoor air pollution and risk of oesopha… (2026) | machine |
| Pneumonia | OR 5.5 (1.4–22.1) | children · home | case-control study of severe pneumonia in children: cooking location, measles vaccination timing, vitamin A supplementation and socioeconomic and nutritional status compared between 45 cases and 72 controls with multiple regression | F-1547 PrayGod et al. Indoor Air Pollution and Delayed Measles Vaccination Increas… (2016) | machine |
| — | RR 1.57 (1.17–2.11) | — · home | cohort of patients followed for six months after discharge: mortality related to a proxy exposure combining a polluting cooking fuel used indoors and a polluting household lighting source | F-1565 Dhutt Exposure to pollutants for household cooking and lighting an… (2025) | machine |
| — | HR 1.10 (1.03–1.18) | — · home | prospective cohort of older adults: the household cooking fuel related to all-cause mortality over follow-up, fully adjusted, with urban or rural residency tested as a modifier | F-1715 Type of Cooking Fuel and Mortality Among Oldest-Old in China (2020) | machine |
| Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) | HR 1.34 (1.18–1.53) | — · home | prospective cohort of Chinese adults: cooking and heating fuel recorded at baseline and at resurveys, with incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ascertained through linked health records over a long follow-up | F-1771 Li Solid Fuel Use and Incident COPD in Chinese Adults: Findings… (2019) | machine |
| Cardiovascular disease (CVD) | HR 1.18 (1.05–1.32) | — · home | prospective cohort of Chinese adults: household cooking and heating fuel recorded at baseline and at follow-up surveys, with incident non-fatal cardiovascular disease ascertained over the follow-up | F-1784 Indoor solid fuel use for cooking and the risk of incidental… (2022) | machine |
| Cataract | HR 1.11 (1.00–1.23) | women · home | prospective cohort of half a million Chinese adults: cooking fuel and its duration recorded at baseline and at resurveys, with incident eye disease ascertained through linked health records and examined for interaction with sex and smoking | F-1787 Chan et al. Long-term solid fuel use and risks of major eye diseases in … (2021) | machine |
| Cataract | HR 1.16 (1.05–1.28) | never-smokers · home | prospective cohort of half a million Chinese adults: cooking fuel and its duration recorded at baseline and at resurveys, with incident eye disease ascertained through linked health records and examined for interaction with sex and smoking | F-1788 Chan et al. Long-term solid fuel use and risks of major eye diseases in … (2021) | 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. Solid fuel. Coridum Knowledge G-0113, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0113/