Powering Health with Energy in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Energy is central to human health, powering essential activities from cooking food and regulating environments in the home to operating equipment and refrigerating vaccines in healthcare facilities. Despite progress in extending access, however, many low resource settings still suffer from energy poverty, forcing vast populations to breathe contaminated air from cooking with biomass fuels and walk to health centers that often struggle to keep lights on and electrical equipment running. The result is a heavy disease burden that corresponds directly with lack of access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy and exhibits the same inequity that characterizes other poverty-related deprivations. In this paper, we motivate this Series on Energy and Health in low-and middle-income countries by highlighting these persistent disparities in energy access, use, quality, and reliability; the associated disease burden; the salient opportunities to mitigate disease by providing clean and quality energy to households, communities, and healthcare facilities; and the major policy, technological, and financial constraints that must be overcome.

Keywords: Energy poverty, energy justice, energy access, clean energy