Reducing health and gender inequalities in India through clean cooking technologies: a scenario-based analysis

Reliance on biomass and other polluting cooking fuels remains widespread in India and continues to impose substantial health burdens through both household and ambient air pollution, undermining progress toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3, 5, and 7. Using nationally representative data from the Indian Human Development Survey (2011–2012), we construct a composite measure of individual functional health and estimate its association with cooking fuel and stove types while accounting for socioeconomic characteristics, housing conditions, cooking roles, and district-level ambient PM 2.5 exposure. These estimates are combined with a structural household energy choice model and air pollution scenarios to predict stove and fuel adoption under alternative policy pathways and to assess the associated population health outcomes in 2030. The results show that biomass- and kerosene-based cooking is associated with significantly poorer health outcomes, with larger adverse effects observed among women responsible for cooking. Intermediate technologies such as improved biomass stoves provide limited health gains but remain inferior to clean alternatives. Scenario comparisons for 2030 indicate that policy pathways aligned with SDG 7 targets and the Paris Agreement are associated with substantially better population health outcomes than business-as-usual scenarios, which yield only modest improvements. Therefore, universal access to clean cooking technologies offers important co-benefits for population health, gender equality, and climate mitigation, supporting progress toward multiple SDGs in India.