In-Door Air Pollution Linked To Increased Blood Pressure Among Older Women

In a new study, in-door air pollution has been linked to increased blood pressure among older women.Researchers with University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted their study in a remote area of Yunnan Province, China. As part of the research 280 women in an ethnic minority called the Naxi wore a portable device that sampled the air they were breathing for 24 hours. The Naxi live in compounds including a central, free-standing kitchen that often has both a stove and a fire pit, says Jill Baumgartner, who performed the study with National Science Foundation funding while a Ph.D. student at Wisconsin-Madison. 
“I spent a lot of time watching women cook in these unvented kitchens, and within seconds, my eyes would burn, it would get a little difficult to breathe. The women talk about these same discomforts, but they are viewed as just another hardship of rural life,” Baumgartner says. 
Most women are exposed to this smoke for several hours a day, and even if the cookstove is vented, a second fire is often burning for heat, says Baumgartner, who is now a global renewable energy leadership fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.