Broadly, we focus on the impacts of energy use - typically at the household level -- on air pollution, climate, and health. While progress on providing clean household energy arguably follows development trajectories, there is need to accelerate the transition to clean cooking through innovative policy and dissemination approaches. Our research group builds the evidence base for these transitions -- based on health, environmental, and economic benefits -- using the multidisciplinary field of Environmental Health Sciences, which sits at the interface of laboratory science, aerosol chemistry, environmental engineering, and implementation science, as the foundation of our work. Our work falls into some broad thematic areas, discussed below.
Household air pollution contributes substantially to ambient air pollution. Estimates of this contribution range between 20 and 45% globally, with large spatial heterogeneity. Reducing household air pollution from solid fuel use thus has benefits across scales — it benefits people in homes who rely on these fuels, but also provides benefits to communities and airsheds by reducing ambient air pollution levels.
We engage in policy-oriented experiments to help justify continued investment in clean household energy. These range from cost-effectiveness analyses to behavior change campaigns to pragmatic, scalable policies targeting the most vulnerable populations.
Interventions to decrease household air pollution exposures have a long history, ranging from so-called ‘improved’ biomass stoves that burn available fuels cleanly to clean fuels, like liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol, to electricity. Our group works on evaluating interventions from cost, environmental, climate, and health perspectives.
Our group makes measurements to estimate exposure and, in doing so, inform policies, evaluate interventions, and help provide evidence of potential health risk. Where instrumentation is lacking, we develop our own or adapt technologies used in other sectors and disciplines.
With Lisa Thompson (Emory), Johannes Urpelainen (Johns Hopkins), Carlos Gould (Columbia), and Morsel Research and Development (Uttar Pradesh, India)
India has undergone a dramatic household energy transformation in recent years, driven by government initiatives to increase clean fuel access. These improvements have not led to complete transitions to clean cooking, with most households continuing regular biomass use, a trend that may be exacerbated by the COVID‐19 pandemic. 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.
Rajamani, K. D., Sambandam, S., Mukhopadhyay, K., Puttaswamy, N., Thangavel, G., Natesan, D., Ramasamy, R., Sendhil, S., Natarajan, A., Aravindalochan, V., Pillarisetti, A., Johnson, M., Rosenthal, J., Steenland, K., Piedhrahita, R., Peel, J., Clark, M. L., Boyd Barr, D., Rajkumar, S., … Balakrishnan, K. (2022). Visualizing Field Data Collection Procedures of Exposure and Biomarker Assessments for the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network Trial in India. In Journal of Visualized Experiments (Issue 190). MyJove Corporation. https://doi.org/10.3791/64144
The Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) Trial is an international multi-center study aimed at assessing the impact of a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cooking stove and fuel intervention on health. HAPIN Trial centers are located in four countries: Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda.
The HAPIN Trial was launched in 2017 with formative research. Main trial enrollment started in 2018 and follow-up of participants ended in September 2021. More than 7,200 study participants were enrolled and will help the HAPIN Trial find answers to questions about LPG cookstoves and health. Currently the investigators are analyzing data for the primary outcomes: low birth weight, severe pneumonia incidence, and stunting in the child, and blood pressure in the older adult woman. Secondary outcomes include preterm birth and child development in the child, maternal blood pressure during pregnancy, and endothelial function, respiratory impairment, atherosclerosis, carcinogenic metabolites, and quality of life in the older adult woman. The team has been publishing manuscripts throughout project implementation.
The trial is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Participating NIH components are the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Cancer Institute, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the NIH Common Fund of the NIH Office of the Director, and the Fogarty International Center. NHLBI leads administration of the trial on behalf of the consortium. The Global LPG Partnership provides expert advice. We are thankful for the guidance of our advisory committee: Patrick Brysse, Donna Spiegelman, and Joel Kaufman.
With colleagues at Berkeley Air Monitoring Group, the World Bank, and LIRE (Vientiane), we are developing standard methods for estimating the health benefits (in the form of ADALYs – avoided disability-adjusted life years) that can be attributed to a stove project to introduce advanced combustion stoves in villages within the Savannakhet region of Laos. This project, led by L. Drew Hill, PhD, involved air pollution field work before and after the introduction of the stoves, modeling changes in personal exposure to PM2.5, and using the Household Air Pollution Intervention Tool (HAPIT) to calculate the estimated change in adult and child disease rates that would result.
In Maharashtra, India, we collaborated with Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (SRIHER) and KEM Hospital Research Centre to provide clean fuels to pregnant women, recruited in the late first or early second trimester, in Pune district, Maharashtra, India. Our study sought to evaluate whether fuel use could be incentivized using a conditional cash transfer and, additionally, what the benefit and cost of providing free fuel during pregnancy would be in terms of pollution exposure reduction and exclusive use of clean fuels. Our study had multiple arms: one in which household received a clean LPG stove and two cylinders of fuel; one in which household were paid for their LPG use, using a novel conditional cash transfer sensor; and one in which households received free fuel for the duration of pregnancy (up to one free refill per month). Finally, we sought to assess the feasibility of targeting newly wed couples prior to conception; we did so because reducing exposures in the first trimesters is thought to be critical. Findings from the study, which was funded by the Clean Cooking Implementation Science Network, were extensively published.
Patil, S. S., Puttaswamy, N., Pillarisetti, A., Cardenas, A., Steenland, K., Patil, S. S., Saidam, S., Bharadwaj, R., Balakrishnan, K., Waller, L. A., Peel, J., Clasen, T., & Barr, D. B. (2025). Association of prenatal and early-life polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons exposure with dental caries in childhood. Environmental Research, 282, 122021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2025.122021
Gill-Wiehl, A., Pillarisetti, A., Kwong, L. H., Daouda, M., Kammen, D. M., & Clasen, T. (2025). Powering the Future: Policies to Advance Equitable Clean Cooking Access for Health, Well-Being, and Climate. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 12(8), 893–900. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.5c00567
Mollinedo, E., McCracken, J. P., Johnson, M., Piedrahita, R., Pillarisetti, A., Waller, L. A., Wang, J., Thompson, L. M., Diaz-Artiga, A., de Leon, O., Ramirez, A., Polanco, A., Campbell, D., Kearns, K. A., Kremer, J., Nicolaou, L., Clark, M. L., Balakrishnan, K., Rosa, G., … Naeher, L. P. (2025). Comparing Performance and Reliability of Collocated Enhanced Children’s MicroPEM (ECM) on Gravimetric and Nephelometric PM2.5 Personal Exposure Samples in Field Measurements in Rural Guatemala. In N. B. Dhital (Ed.), Indoor Air (Vol. 2025, Issue 1). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1155/ina/8812602
Ye, W., Campbell, D., Johnson, M., Balakrishnan, K., Peel, J. L., Steenland, K., Underhill, L. J., Rosa, G., Kirby, M. A., Díaz-Artiga, A., McCracken, J., Thompson, L. M., Clark, M. L., Waller, L. A., Chang, H. H., Wang, J., Dusabimana, E., Ndagijimana, F., Sambandam, S., … Pillarisetti, A. (2024). Exposure Contrasts of Women Aged 40–79 Years during the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network Randomized Controlled Trial. In Environmental Science & Technology (Vol. 59, Issue 1, pp. 69–81). American Chemical Society (ACS). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c06337
Pillarisetti, A., Alnes, L. W. H., Ye, W., McCracken, J. P., Canuz, E., & Smith, K. R. (2022). Repeated assessment of PM2.5 in Guatemalan kitchens cooking with wood: Implications for measurement strategies. In Atmospheric Environment (p. 119533). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119533