Three things to check out this week!
First, a webinar hosted by CASCADES by Ivy Lam, Ilona Hale, and Trudy Huyghebaert. If you're interested in how prescription medicines can have significant impacts on our climate (I am!) then this is a really good overview of the issue. The webinar also delves into prescribing practices, de-prescribing, shared decision-making, and other interesting topics related to medications, patient care, and the environment. Definitely worth a watch!
A new article from Martin Hensher from the University of Tasmania was just published in the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care about the role of health technology assessment in environmental sustainability. He distinguishes between new technologies that might have intrinsic versus generic characteristics related to environmental impact, and relates these to mitigation strategies and developing resilience. HTA, he argues, needs to play a role in ensuring sustainable health systems moving forward.
You can find the article here.
Finally, most of you will have seen this but just in case it flew under your radar, the newly released 2024 Europe Report from the Lancet Countdown focuses on warming and its effects on mortality, including disproportionate effects across the population and the inadequacy of current efforts to curb this warming.