Health care sector leaves small environmental footprint

The Associated Press reports that the first estimate of health care's carbon footprint has found that the industry "emits less than its share of the gases that promote global warming, compared to its size in the economy."

"Hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies and the rest of the sector contributed 8 percent of U.S. emissions, according to an analysis in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Health care makes up 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product." The analysis was done by the University of Chicago based on 2007 federal health spending data and takes power consumption and emissions into account. Many hospitals are trying to reduce their emissions (Johnson, 11/10).


Kaiser Health NewsThis article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Comments

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
Post a new comment
Post

While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided.

Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles.

Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information.

Read the full Terms & Conditions.

You might also like...
Study finds health care evaluations of large language models lacking in real patient data and bias assessment