Another Peer-Reviewed Study Debunks Causal Relationship Between Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma
There is not sufficient evidence demonstrating causal relationships between cooking on gas stoves, indoor NO2, and asthma in children, according to a new published peer-reviewed study analyzing 66 epidemiology studies. The study – Gas Cooking and Respiratory Outcomes in Children: A Systematic Review – was funded by the American Gas Association and found the studies often cited by anti-consumer choice activists to convince policymakers to ban natural gas were generally of low quality with high variability in terms of study region, age of children, exposure definition and outcome definition.
Flawed Research
Many of the studies touted in the campaign against gas stoves have significant flaws, as authors of the new research explained:
“…a large proportion of the studies to date are subject to multiple sources of bias and inaccuracy, primarily due to self-reported gas cooking exposure or respiratory outcome, insufficient adjustments for key confounders (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke, family history of asthma or allergies, socioeconomic status or home environment) and unestablished temporality.”
Further, the study’s authors pointed out that the cross-sectional design of most of these studies – favored for initial research – are observational in nature and cannot be used to establish causation or causal inference.
Read the full post on EIDHealth.org.
No Comments