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Share of the population without access to clean fuels for cooking

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Global Health

What you should know about this indicator

How is this data described by its producer?

Rationale

The use of solid fuels and kerosene in households is associated with increased mortality from acute lower respiratory, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, ischaemic heart disease, and lung cancer.

Definition

Proportion of population without primary reliance on clean fuels and technology is calculated as the number of people unable to use clean fuels and technologies for cooking, heating and lighting divided by total population reporting that any cooking, heating or lighting, expressed as percentage. “Clean” is defined by the emission rate targets and specific fuel recommendations (i.e. against unprocessed coal and kerosene) included in the normative guidance WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion.

Method of measurement

The indicator is calculated as the number of people unable to use clean fuels and technologies divided by total population, expressed as a percentage. Based on the recommendations included in the WHO Guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion, the fuels and technologies that are considered clean include electricity, natural gas, liquified petroleum gas, biogas, ethanol, and solar.

Method of estimation

A non-parametrical statistical model based on household survey data and time as inputs is applied to derive estimates. For further information on the model, see Stoner O et al, 2020: Global Household Energy Model: A Multivariate Hierarchical Approach to Estimating Trends in the Use of Polluting and Clean Fuels for Cooking (see link below). Input data for the model is found in the WHO Household Energy Database. This database compiles data from nationally-representative surveys and censuses that provide estimates of primary cooking fuels and technologies. In cases where estimates of the population not cooking at home, with missing data or cooking with other fuels are provided, these populations are removed from the denominator for estimation purposes. The population data source is the 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects.

Share of the population without access to clean fuels for cooking
Proportion of population without primary reliance on clean fuels and technology is calculated as the number of people unable to use clean fuels and technologies for cooking, heating and lighting divided by total population reporting that any cooking, heating or lighting, expressed as percentage. “Clean” is defined by the emission rate targets and specific fuel recommendations (i.e. against unprocessed coal and kerosene) included in the normative guidance WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion.
Source
World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 19, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1990–2023
Unit
%

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – Global Health Observatory

The GHO data repository is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. It provides access to over 1000 indicators on priority health topics including mortality and burden of diseases, the Millennium Development Goals (child nutrition, child health, maternal and reproductive health, immunization, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected diseases, water and sanitation), non communicable diseases and risk factors, epidemic-prone diseases, health systems, environmental health, violence and injuries, equity among others.

Retrieved on
May 19, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/data/gho
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. 2025. Global Health Observatory data repository. http://www.who.int/gho/en/.

The GHO data repository is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. It provides access to over 1000 indicators on priority health topics including mortality and burden of diseases, the Millennium Development Goals (child nutrition, child health, maternal and reproductive health, immunization, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected diseases, water and sanitation), non communicable diseases and risk factors, epidemic-prone diseases, health systems, environmental health, violence and injuries, equity among others.

Retrieved on
May 19, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/data/gho
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. 2025. Global Health Observatory data repository. http://www.who.int/gho/en/.

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Citations

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To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of the population without access to clean fuels for cooking”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2016) - “Global Health”. Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Share of the population without access to clean fuels for cooking” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Global Health Observatory” [original data]. Retrieved March 31, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-without-access-to-clean-fuels-for-cooking.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear