Projects

I work on a range of projects on the determinants of cooking fuel choice, the potential for clean energy transitions to yield climate and health benefits, and measuring exposures to environmental hazards and their health impacts. I list some of my active work here. Please feel free to contact me about any specific projects.

Climate and health benefits of induction stove promotion in Ecuador

Household electrification is an important part of a carbon neutral future, but the effectiveness of specific policies and their co-benefits remains a crucial question. We investigate a large transition from gas to electric cookstoves in Ecuador and assess its impacts on electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emission, and health. First, we precisely estimate changes in customer-level electricity consumption after PEC enrollment using data from Ecuador's two largest utilities over the last five to eight years. Second, we conduct a complementary analysis using monthly nationwide parish level data to show how average residential electricity consumption changes with the fraction of customers enrolled in PEC. Third, we assess the relationship between increased PEC-related electricity consumption and residential LPG sales. Fourth, we combine these data with detailed information on Ecuador's electricity grid fuel mix each to provide estimates of how greenhouse gas emissions have changed with the expansion of PEC. Finally, we assess whether parish-level induction stove use is associated with hospitalizations. Analysis is underway. Check out our preprint "Climate and health benefits of a transition from gas to electric cooking" here!

Wildfire smoke and health in the US

Wildfires represent a growing threat to public health across the US and the world. With the ECHO lab at Stanford, we have work characterizing spatio-temporally resolved wildfire specific ambient air pollution concentrations, indoor air pollution concentrations during wildfires, population-level behavioral responses to wildfires, and health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. We are also leading a review of the health effects of wildfires.

Using repeat surveys to assess the impact of COVID-19 on household energy use

India's recent government initiatives have driven dramatic increases in the household use of clean cooking fuels. However, most households still rely on biomass cooking fuels for some of their energy needs. The COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate this pattern of fuel stacking. We leverage and extend a recently completed energy survey of 1440 households in rural Jharkhand by deploying a follow‐up, telephone‐based questionnaire multiple times over the next year, enabling analysis of how COVID‐19 and stay‐at‐home orders alter energy use behaviors. Findings from this longitudinal study will help (1) understand drivers of stacking or exclusive LPG or biomass use; (2) provide insights into how resilient household energy use patterns are to sudden economic and social shocks; and (3) establish guidance that may inform planning for the next pandemic or other unexpected shock. Check out our publication in Nature energy!

Estimating the health benefits of widespread clean cooking fuel scale up: an ecological analysis in Ecuador, 1990-2019

Widespread household transitions to the use of clean-burning cooking fuels are a promising pathway to reducing under-5 lower respiratory infection (LRI) mortality, the leading cause of child mortality globally, but such transitions are rare and evidence supporting an association between increased clean fuel use and improved health is limited. By leveraging a unique nationwide government policy in Ecuador where highly-subsidized clean-burning cooking gas led to a national transition to clean cooking over the past 30 years, the proposed study tests the hypothesis that the widespread replacement of solid fuel cooking with clean cooking fuels reduces under-5 pneumonia mortality. This research will result in a policy-relevant assessment of the long-term effects of clean cooking transitions on children’s health, which can inform current large investments in cleaner cooking around the world. Our manuscript has been conditionally accepted at Environmental health perspectives.

Estimating the benefits of clean cooking interventions for air pollution exposure, birth outcomes, and infant health: evidence from the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS)

A collaboration between Columbia University and the Kintampo Health Research Centre, GRAPHS is a large cluster-randomized controlled trial testing two clean cooking interventions to improve birthweight and reduce under-1 severe pneumonia in rural Ghana. Analyses from this study include, among others, the impacts of cooking interventions on personal air pollution exposure, intention-to-treat analysis of the impact of cooking interventions on birthweight and incidence of under-1 severe pneumonia, exposure-response analyses of pre- and postnatal air pollution exposure on birth outcomes and incidence of under-1 severe pneumonia, air pollution exposure on growth trajectories and child lung function, and a novel analysis using personal air pollution monitor wearing data to infer community air pollution and the contribution of cooking to air pollution exposures.

Clean fuel policies and cooking fuel choices in Ecuador

In a series of projects and studies, we study the development of Ecuador's long-standing LPG subsidy and its more recent induction stove promotion program using government records, interviews with key stakeholders, academic literature, newspaper reports, and also household energy use surveys and focus groups throughout Ecuador. Given the near-ideal scenario of ubiquitous low-cost LPG, we have created and built capacity for a personal exposure to air pollution and stove monitoring research center at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and supplemented training with pilot evaluations of multiple fuel use and personal exposure to air pollution in Andean and coastal Ecuador.