Primary use of gaseous or electric cooking fuel was associated with better mental health, reflected in fewer depressive symptoms, whereas neither household energy infrastructure indicator showed a clear association.
Gaseous cooking fuel use was associated with significantly lower depressive symptom scores and lower odds of probable depression compared to solid fuel use.
Electric cooking fuel use was associated with lower depressive symptom scores and lower odds of probable depression compared to solid fuel use, though the association was weaker than for gaseous fuel.
Coal gas/natural gas infrastructure availability was not clearly associated with depressive symptom scores.
Heating infrastructure availability was not clearly associated with depressive symptom scores.
The study included 4975 rural adults aged 60 years or older from 3291 households using a nationally representative longitudinal study dataset.
The authors conclude that nominal availability and routine use of energy infrastructure should be measured separately in future research.
This research examined whether the type of cooking fuel used by older rural Chinese adults is linked to their mental health, specifically depressive symptoms. Using data from nearly 5,000 adults aged 60 and older surveyed in 2018, the study found that people who primarily cooked with gas or electricity reported fewer depressive symptoms and lower rates of probable depression compared to those who cooked with solid fuels such as coal or wood. The association was particularly strong for gas cooking fuel users, who had roughly one-third lower odds of probable depression than solid fuel users. Interestingly, simply having access to gas infrastructure or heating infrastructure in the home was not associated with mental health outcomes — only the actual type of fuel people routinely used for cooking made a difference. This suggests that measuring whether infrastructure exists in a community is not the same as measuring whether people actually use cleaner energy sources, and that future studies should track both availability and actual use separately. This research suggests that efforts to transition rural older adults from solid fuels to cleaner cooking options like gas or electricity may have mental health benefits in addition to the known physical health benefits of reduced indoor air pollution. However, because this was a one-time snapshot study rather than a long-term follow-up, it is not possible to confirm that switching fuels causes better mental health — the relationship could run in other directions, and longitudinal studies are needed to clarify this.
Wang Y, Liu R, Chen M, Xiong Z, Li Y. (2026). Household Energy Infrastructure, Cooking Fuel Use, and Mental Health Among Older Adults in Rural China.. International journal of geriatric psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.70251