Improved Cookstoves

As of 2008, 27% of the people in developing countries use improved cook stoves, which attempt to reduce indoor air pollution.^[4] Improved cook stoves development started with a heavy focus on increasing combustion efficiency. This is partly because increased combustion efficiency: reduces the particulates, Carbon monoxide, and Nitrogen Oxide produced by incomplete combustion, reduces fuel use, reduces Carbon Dioxide emissions and black carbon production, reduces the families time needed to collect wood, and reduces cooking time. Increased combustion efficiency might have also been such a large focus because it is one of the easier elements of a stove to study and improve in a lab.^[5]

During this time important elements beyond increased combustion efficiency were being overlooked, these include:

• • that though the smoke is an irritant it might perform important functions in pest control or in curing the food,
  • also though costs may be low the women might not control the income and thus can not purchase the improved stove,
  • that the fuel type changes in season and the stove must be efficient at burning these different types of fuel,
  • and that different environments change the functions of the stove as the stove might also serve the double purpose of heating the house in colder climates.<ref>Jiggins, Janice. "Changing the boundaries: women-centered perspectives on population and the environment", Island Press, 1994. <ref>Today improved cook stove development programs attempt to do field tests, surveys, consultations with community members, and educational dissemination programs in order to get feedback to see if the community is seeing benefits from these improved stoves. Beyond increased combustion efficiency, smoke reduction can occur from chimney ventilation and sealed comals or comal openings sized to the families pot's size.

Improved Cookstove Programs

HSU Chiapas Improved Cookstoves comparing the Patsari and Lorena cookstoves in Mexico

Indoor Air Quality Testing