Environmental Health

Professor Partners with City of Boston to Retrofit Gas Stoves for Dorchester Residents

Jonathan Levy will evaluate the health, environmental, and economic impacts of a pilot program that will replace 80 gas stoves with electric or induction stoves for residents in affordable housing communities in Dorchester.

Health experts have long known that gas stoves are harmful to human health and to the environment, generating significant indoor air pollution while they are being used and even when they are turned off. Gas stoves have also been described as “gateway appliances” that stand in the way of electrifying buildings, a key measure to address the climate crisis.

School of Public Health researchers are hoping to mitigate these risks through a new initiative with the City of Boston that aims to make stovetop cooking safer for local residents, while at the same time addressing the climate crisis and energy costs. 

The city recently received $1 million in federal funding through the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Government-to-Government Program for a pilot study to convert 80 gas stoves to electric for residents in the Franklin Field Apartments and Talbot Bernard Homes in Dorchester. Both complexes are affordable housing communities run by the Boston Housing Authority and Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, respectively. 

Jonathan Levy, chair and professor of environmental health, working with SPH staff and students, will evaluate the health and economic impacts of this three-year pilot program, which will not only benefit residents and the environment, but create equitable health opportunities for historically underserved low-income communities. The majority of residents in the selected housing complexes are Black and Latino. 

The program will replace gas stoves with an induction stove or a standard electric coil range, as well as educate residents on electric/induction cooking and the associated health and environmental benefits. The federal grant emphasizes the logistics of stove replacement, including steps such as electrical upgrades if needed, procurement, and workforce development.

“Our goal is to figure out how to improve the health and economic well-being of residents while we take steps to reduce our impacts on climate change, one of the major challenges of our time,” says Levy. Replacing gas stoves is an ideal solution, he says, because it can achieve each of these objectives and also improve the cooking experience.

In addition to gathering data on health, air quality, and utility costs, “we are asking people about their experiences because we want people to be happy cooking at home,” Levy says. “This project is about putting structures in place that would make it easier and economically practical for people to make the decision to move to a safer and cleaner technology.”

The topic of gas stoves has gained substantial media attention over the last year after a US Consumer Product Safety Commission commissioner suggested in early 2023 that the agency was considering regulating gas stoves, before later clarifying that the CPSC had no intention of banning these appliances. 

Since then, several studies have produced compelling data—on top of decades of previous research—indicating that gas stoves emit extremely hazardous pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide and benzene, that can lead to or exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular issues, as well as other health conditions. A study published last April found that air pollution from gas stoves may contribute to 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the US, while a California-based study published last July found alarming levels of benzene—a federally designated carcinogen linked to leukemia and other cancers—in almost all of the homes tested in the study. Gas stoves emit the substance into the air when stoves are turned off.

Levy and other SPH researchers have also published numerous studies and commentaries on the health, environmental, and economic effects of gas stoves over the last 30 years, such as Levy’s study from 1998 that showed that gas stove usage at home was the dominant contributor to indoor nitrogen dioxide exposure. Patricia Fabian, associate professor of environmental health, led a 2014 study that found that gas stoves replacements in households with asthmatic children led to nearly $200 in annual health cost savings per child. Staff and students in the Department of Environmental Health will join Levy to evaluate the gas stove replacement program, including Breanna van Loenen, research data analyst.

Ultimately, the program will serve as a model for future electrification projects that advance climate action plans in Boston and in other US cities. Boston has set a goal to become a carbon-neutral city by 2050.

Levy hopes the forthcoming data will dispel political narratives—and legislative action—that frame gas stove usage as a partisan issue rather than a legitimate and urgent health and environmental concern.

“Gas stove replacement has become a political target because it is easy to caricature as the government coming into your house and telling you how to cook, but it should instead be thought of as government trying to put the systems and structures in place to make it more financially viable and logistically simpler for people to adopt new technology that can improve health and even make cooking work better,” he says. “Technology changes and we make changes in our homes all of the time as a result, and it is an appropriate role for the government to incentivize safer technologies.”

Although switching from gas to electric stoves is the most health-protective solution to limit indoor natural gas exposure at home, people can also help mitigate their exposure to these pollutants by turning on their range hood (if one is available) or increasing ventilation by other means, such as turning on other fans, using air purifiers, or opening windows. Those who are interested in replacing their gas stove with an electric or induction stove may be eligible for a rebate through the Inflation Reduction Act.