• Eric D McCollum, John P McCracken, Miles A Kirby, Laura M Grajeda, Shakir Hossen, Lawrence H Moulton, Suzanne M Simkovich, Dina Goodman-Palmer, Ghislaine Rosa, Alexie Mukeshimana, Kalpana Balakrishnan, Gurusamy Thangavel, Sarada S Garg, Adly Castañaza, Lisa M Thompson, Anaite Diaz-Artiga, Aris T Papageorghiou, Victor G Davila-Roman, Lindsay J Underhill, Stella M Hartinger, Kendra N Williams, Laura Nicolaou, Howard H Chang, Amy E Lovvorn, Joshua P Rosenthal, Ajay Pillarisetti, Wenlu Ye, Luke P Naeher, Michael A Johnson, Lance A Waller, Shirin Jabbarzadeh, Jiantong Wang, Yunyun Chen, Kyle Steenland, Thomas F Clasen, Jennifer L Peel, William Checkley, and HAPIN Investigators.
• From the Global Program in Pediatric Respiratory Sciences, Eudowood Division of Pediatric Respiratory Sciences (E.D.M.), the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care (S.H., S.M.S., D.G.-P., S.M.H., K.N.W., L.N., W.C.), and the Center for Global Non-Communicable Disease Research and Training, School of Medicine (S.H., S.M.S., D.G.-P., S.M.H., K.N.W., L.N., W.C.), and the Department of International Health (E.D.M.) and the Program in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control, Department of International Health (L.H.M.), Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, the Division of Healthcare Delivery Research, MedStar Health Research Institute, Hyattsville (S.M.S.), and Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda (J.P.R.) - all in Maryland; the Global Health Institute, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (J.P.M., L.M.G.), and the Department of Environmental Health Science, College of Public Health (L.P.N.), University of Georgia, Athens, and the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (H.H.C., L.A.W., S.J., J.W., Y.C.) and the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health (A.E.L., K.S., T.F.C.), Rollins School of Public Health, and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing (L.M.T.), Emory University, Atlanta - both in Georgia; the Center for Health Studies, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala City (J.P.M., L.M.G., A.C., A.D.-A.); the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston (M.A.K.); the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington DC (S.M.S.); the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London (G.R.), and Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, Oxford (A.T.P.) - both in the United Kingdom; Eagle Research Center, Kigali, Rwanda (A.M.); the Indian Council of Medical Research Center for Advanced Research on Air Quality, Climate and Health, Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra Institute for Higher Education and Research, Chennai, India (K.B., G.T., S.S.G.); the Global Health Center, Institute for Public Health and Cardiovascular Division, Department of Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, MO (V.G.D.-R., L.J.U.); the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley (A.P., W.Y.), and Berkeley Air Monitoring Group (M.A.J.) - both in Berkeley, CA; and the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins (J.L.P.).
• N. Engl. J. Med. 2024 Jan 4; 390 (1): 324332-43.

BackgroundExposure to household air pollution is a risk factor for severe pneumonia. The effect of replacing biomass cookstoves with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cookstoves on the incidence of severe infant pneumonia is uncertain.MethodsWe conducted a randomized, controlled trial involving pregnant women 18 to 34 years of age and between 9 to less than 20 weeks' gestation in India, Guatemala, Peru, and Rwanda from May 2018 through September 2021. The women were assigned to cook with unvented LPG stoves and fuel (intervention group) or to continue cooking with biomass fuel (control group). In each trial group, we monitored adherence to the use of the assigned cookstove and measured 24-hour personal exposure to fine particulate matter (particles with an aerodynamic diameter of ≤2.5 μm [PM2.5]) in the women and their offspring. The trial had four primary outcomes; the primary outcome for which data are presented in the current report was severe pneumonia in the first year of life, as identified through facility surveillance or on verbal autopsy.ResultsAmong 3200 pregnant women who had undergone randomization, 3195 remained eligible and gave birth to 3061 infants (1536 in the intervention group and 1525 in the control group). High uptake of the intervention led to a reduction in personal exposure to PM2.5 among the children, with a median exposure of 24.2 μg per cubic meter (interquartile range, 17.8 to 36.4) in the intervention group and 66.0 μg per cubic meter (interquartile range, 35.2 to 132.0) in the control group. A total of 175 episodes of severe pneumonia were identified during the first year of life, with an incidence of 5.67 cases per 100 child-years (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.55 to 7.07) in the intervention group and 6.06 cases per 100 child-years (95% CI, 4.81 to 7.62) in the control group (incidence rate ratio, 0.96; 98.75% CI, 0.64 to 1.44; P = 0.81). No severe adverse events were reported to be associated with the intervention, as determined by the trial investigators.ConclusionsThe incidence of severe pneumonia among infants did not differ significantly between those whose mothers were assigned to cook with LPG stoves and fuel and those whose mothers were assigned to continue cooking with biomass stoves. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; HAPIN ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02944682.).Copyright © 2024 Massachusetts Medical Society.

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