Source
Wood
Part of: Building materials
Also: woods, timber, firewood, wood products
Wood indoors is two different sources at once: a fuel that is burned, and a material that stands in the room as structure, panelling, flooring and furniture. Burning releases combustion products; standing releases what the wood and its treatment contain.
Where it comes from indoors
The two roles need separating, because a study that says “wood” can mean either.
As a fuel, wood is the commonest form of biomass, and what matters is the appliance and the venting rather than the species.
As a material, solid wood emits the volatile compounds it holds naturally — terpenes above all, which is what a newly panelled room smells of — and the emission falls as the surface ages. Engineered products behave differently: the adhesive, not the wood, decides the emission, which is why wood-based panels are regulated for formaldehyde and solid boards are not.
Treatment changes the picture again. Coatings, preservatives and fire retardants each add their own emission, and a finished surface is not the material the certificate described.
What the studies report
12 of 27 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | difference 34 | 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-0727 Impacts of Improved Cookstove Interventions on Personal Expo… (2025) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 4.1 | pregnant women and their newborns · home | analysis inside RESPIRE, a randomised trial in rural Guatemala: pregnant women were given a chimney stove or kept an open fire, with 48-hour personal carbon monoxide measured in pregnancy and newborn birth weight measured within 48 hours of birth, adjusted for maternal height, gravidity, blood pressure and season | F-0976 Impact of Reduced Maternal Exposures to Wood Smoke from an I… (2011) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 2.5 | pregnant women and their newborns · home | analysis inside RESPIRE, a randomised trial in rural Guatemala: pregnant women were given a chimney stove or kept an open fire, with 48-hour personal carbon monoxide measured in pregnancy and newborn birth weight measured within 48 hours of birth, adjusted for maternal height, gravidity, blood pressure and season | F-0977 Impact of Reduced Maternal Exposures to Wood Smoke from an I… (2011) | machine |
| Birth weight | difference 68 (-56–191) · borderline | pregnant women and their newborns · home | analysis inside RESPIRE, a randomised trial in rural Guatemala: pregnant women were given a chimney stove or kept an open fire, with 48-hour personal carbon monoxide measured in pregnancy and newborn birth weight measured within 48 hours of birth, adjusted for maternal height, gravidity, blood pressure and season | F-0978 Impact of Reduced Maternal Exposures to Wood Smoke from an I… (2011) | machine |
| Low birth weight | OR 0.74 (0.33–1.66) · borderline | pregnant women and their newborns · home | analysis inside RESPIRE, a randomised trial in rural Guatemala: pregnant women were given a chimney stove or kept an open fire, with 48-hour personal carbon monoxide measured in pregnancy and newborn birth weight measured within 48 hours of birth, adjusted for maternal height, gravidity, blood pressure and season | F-0979 Impact of Reduced Maternal Exposures to Wood Smoke from an I… (2011) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | beta 0.038 per one additional minute of cooking in a kitchen without a chimney ppm | pregnant women and their newborns · home | communication from Sri Lanka: pregnant women's exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and to wood-fuel smoke recorded by questionnaire, expired-air carbon monoxide measured with a breath monitor, and neonatal birth weight and gestational age recorded at delivery | F-0990 Pathirathna et al. Effects of Prenatal Tobacco and Wood-Fuel Smoke Exposure on … (2017) | machine |
| Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) | HR 1.14 (1.06–1.23) | — · 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-1770 Li Solid Fuel Use and Incident COPD in Chinese Adults: Findings… (2019) | machine |
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | emission-rate 0.0127 | — · laboratory (desiccator) | laboratory desiccator-method comparison (JIS A 1460 type) of formaldehyde emissions from six interior wood materials: medium-density fiberboard, melamine-faced board, pine, birch, oak and alder | F-0326 Negrete-Carrillo et al. Formaldehyde Emissions from Wood Materials and Their Impact … (2026) | machine |
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | emission-rate 0.0109 | — · laboratory (desiccator) | laboratory desiccator-method comparison (JIS A 1460 type) of formaldehyde emissions from six interior wood materials: medium-density fiberboard, melamine-faced board, pine, birch, oak and alder | F-0327 Negrete-Carrillo et al. Formaldehyde Emissions from Wood Materials and Their Impact … (2026) | machine |
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | emission-rate 0.0063 | — · laboratory (desiccator) | laboratory desiccator-method comparison (JIS A 1460 type) of formaldehyde emissions from six interior wood materials: medium-density fiberboard, melamine-faced board, pine, birch, oak and alder | F-0329 Negrete-Carrillo et al. Formaldehyde Emissions from Wood Materials and Their Impact … (2026) | machine |
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | emission-rate 0.0023 | — · laboratory (desiccator) | laboratory desiccator-method comparison (JIS A 1460 type) of formaldehyde emissions from six interior wood materials: medium-density fiberboard, melamine-faced board, pine, birch, oak and alder | F-0330 Negrete-Carrillo et al. Formaldehyde Emissions from Wood Materials and Their Impact … (2026) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 19.4 | — · kitchen | cross-sectional monitoring in rural Paraguay: 24-hour time-integrated PM2.5 and continuous carbon monoxide in kitchens that cooked with wood on a three-stone fire, with charcoal in a metal brazier, with liquefied petroleum gas or with electricity, plus questionnaires and multivariable regression models of the two pollutants | F-0811 Monitoring and modeling of household air quality related to … (2019) | 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.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D014934
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Wood. Coridum Knowledge G-0115, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0115/