Will your gas range make you sick?
Here’s what the science says
Will the gas stove in your kitchen make you sick? Will it cause asthma in your kids?
Those questions came to the fore again as federal officials clarified last week that they are not planning to ban natural gas fueled ranges, ovens or cooktops — unlike in Los Angeles, where the City Council last year laid down such a ban on new gas appliances, including kitchen equipment.
Although scientific studies show that natural gas stoves emit high levels of nitrogen oxides and other health-damaging pollutants, the relationship between those pollutants and human health remains unclear.
Here’s the bottom line: If you use a gas stove, make sure your kitchen is well ventilated, ideally with a range hood that pumps air outside, and if that’s not possible, use a HEPA air filter. And make sure you use them when you’re cooking. They can be noisy, and people who own them often don’t turn them on.
Should you get rid of your gas stove? Emily Oster, an economist and data specialist at Brown University, has analyzed the research on the matter and offers this advice:
“If you have a gas stove do you need to replace it tomorrow? No, unless you have some significant respiratory issue,” said Ms. Oster, who also works with the National Bureau of Economic Research and writes about pregnancy and parent data at parentdata.org.
Natural gas is mostly methane, a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gases as its blue flames burn. Proponents of gas stove bans typically cite the reduction of carbon emissions as their main goal, but they almost always mention health concerns, too.
There’s no question that natural gas cooking emits harmful chemicals including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde.
Several studies have noted that the pollutants issued by gas stoves (before they’re ventilated away) can exceed levels that would violate Environmental Protection Agency and California air standards if the air outside were just as polluted. And studies have shown that natural gas pipe leaks cause air pollution inside and out.
But the scientific research behind the health effects of natural gas stoves is complicated and inconclusive. Although some studies have found a significant association between gas stoves and prevalence of asthma or asthma symptoms in children, no direct causal relationship between gas stove use and bad health has been identified.
Given the difficulties in conducting such research, especially the swarm of variables that tend to confound the results, a clear answer is hard to come by.
What scientists do have in this case is a large number of potentially confounding factors that could skew results.
How big is the cooking area? Is there ventilation? How often is the stove used? Who else is in the house or apartment when meals are prepared?
A 2020 report issued by UCLA and the Sierra Club that synthesized existing data came to much the same conclusion as Ms. Oster: “The association between gas appliance use and health (including furnaces and water heaters) have mixed results, in part due to study design limitations, but also due to a lack of data on quantified exposures,” the paper says.