The Mortality-Related Burden of Cooking-Proxied Energy Poverty in China

China expanded population access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking from approximately 40.3% in 2000 to 88.7% in 2023. Nevertheless, the national-level health returns from this transition for population mortality remain unestimated. This study examines the long-run relationship between energy poverty, proxied by access to clean fuels and technologies, and three health outcomes in China: infant mortality, under-five mortality, and life expectancy. The study uses data from 2000 to 2024 and employs the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), Canonical Cointegrating Regression (CCR), and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) for the analysis. The results are considered robust only if consistent across all three estimators. A 1% increase in clean fuels and technologies access is associated with long-run declines of about 2.10% in infant mortality and 1.93% in under-five mortality, significant at the 1% level across all specifications. In addition, clean fuels and technologies exhibits a positive impact on life expectancy at 1% significance. Likewise, primary education negatively and significantly affects infant and under-five mortality; however, it does not significantly affect life expectancy. Fertility rate shows a positive and significant impact on infant and under-five mortality. To reduce early-life mortality, the findings support treating clean fuel access for rural households that rely on solid fuels as a distinct health policy objective, although its returns relative to conventional healthcare spending require cost-effectiveness evidence beyond the scope of this study.