Household air pollution and arthritis in low-and middle-income countries: Cross-sectional evidence from the World Health Organization’s study on Global Ageing and Adult Health
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Evidence points to a clear link between air pollution exposure and several chronic diseases though investigations regarding arthritis are still lacking. Emerging evidence suggests an association between ambient air pollution and rheumatoid arthritis. Household air pollution exposure, conversely, is largely unstudied but may be an important consideration for arthritis, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where cooking and heating activities can generate high indoor air pollutant levels. METHODS: We investigated the association of household air pollution (electricity vs. gas; kerosene/paraffin; coal/charcoal; wood; or agriculture/crop/animal dung/shrubs/grass as the main fuel used for cooking) and arthritis in six LMICs (China, Ghana, India, Mexico, the Russian Federation, South Africa) using data from Wave I of the World Health Organization Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE) (2007-2010). Multivariable analyses were adjusted for sociodemographic, household and lifestyle characteristics and several comorbidities. RESULTS: The use of gas (aOR = 1.76, 95%CI: 1.40-2.21); coal (aOR = 1.74, 95%CI: 1.22-2.47); wood (aOR = 1.69, 95%CI: 1.30-2.19); or agriculture/crop/animal dung/shrubs/grass: aOR = 1.95 (1.46-2.61) fuels for cooking were strongly associated with an increased odds of arthritis, compared to electricity in cluster and stratified adjusted analyses. Gender (female), age (≥50 years), overweight (25.0 ≤BMI<30.0 kg/m2), obesity (BMI ≥30.0 kg/m2), former and current alcohol consumption, and the comorbidities angina pectoris, diabetes, chronic lung disease, depression and hypertension were also associated with a higher odds of arthritis. Underweight (BMI<18.5 kg/m2) and higher education levels (college/university completed/post-graduate studies) were associated with a lower odds of arthritis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that exposure to household air pollution from cook fuels is associated with an increased odds of arthritis in these regions, which warrants further investigation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".