Re-thinking the prevention and treatment of heart disease The environmental impact of healthcare for cardiovascular conditions
PROFESSOR ALEXANDRA BARRATT Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney
What motivated this study?
considered in an analysis of the carbon footprint
Healthcare services are fundamental to good
of medical services in Japan.3 So our research
human health, but have a significant environmental footprint — from carbon emissions to plastic waste
question was: What do we know about the environmental impacts of preventive and treatment
and water pollution.1 Cardiovascular disease is
services for cardiovascular conditions?4
the most common non-communicable disease
How did we do it?
worldwide, responsible for > 17 million deaths and > 300 million life-years lost in 2017.2 And the burden of heart disease is increasing — 21% increase in deaths between 2007 and 2017.2 Unsurprisingly then, cardiovascular diseases had the largest carbon footprint of all disease and injury types
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The Health Advocate • NOVEMBER 2023
We conducted a systematic search of the literature from 2011 onwards, by searching Medline, Embase and Scopu. We included published papers or conference abstracts that had measured the environmental impact of any kind of healthcare for cardiovascular conditions. We screened over 1500
