Objective This paper systematically reviewed household indoor air pollutants that affected the development of children’s cognitive function, in order to clarify the relationship between them.

Methods  Through electronic search of China National Knowledge Internet, Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Spischolar Academic Resources Online, Google Academic, PubMed, Web of Science, SpringerLink and Cochrane Library 9 databases, literature of the effects of household indoor air pollutants on children’s cognitive function development was retrieved from January 2000 to July 2023, and the relevant data were extracted and analyzed retrospectively and manually according to the references.

Results A total of 18 valid papers obtained from 10 countries were all in English. Among them, there were 10 cohort studies, 6 cross-sectional studies, 1 randomized controlled study and 1 case-control study. The study subjects’ age ranged from 11 months to 14 years. Household indoor air pollutants associated with children’s cognitive function mainly included pollutants from gas cooking and solid biofuel cooking (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc.), tobacco smoke, inhalable particulate matter(PM₁₀, PM_2.5), volatile organic compounds, polychlorinated biphenyl, and pollutants from moisture, mold, pesticides, and pets.

Conclusion Household indoor air pollutants impair the functioning of developing central nervous system through microglial activation, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and intestinal dysbiosis, result in reduced language expression, gross motor and fine motor abilities in children, increased risk of hyperactivity/inattention problems, and decline of fluid intelligence (perception, memory, speed of calculation, reasoning ability), which have an immeasurable negative impact on the long-term development of children.