17 April 2024
A post on LinkedIn led me to this 'Environmental Impacts' collection of articles published in the journal Applied Health Economics and Health Policy. At present, it only has a few articles but provides a nice starting point for new articles at the intersection of health economics/policy and climate change. Just by virtue of it existing is promising for the evolution of research around health economics and climate change. I'll definitely be checking back regularly to check for new publications in this area!
Of those articles listed in the collection, I was particularly interested in this article about the use of budget impact analysis and the incorporation of climate change related considerations. A few years old now, but the research looked at the impact of a re-usable inhaler (RESPIMAT) in Germany. Using a 'cradle-to-grave' approach for the inhalers, the authors estimated carbon emissions associated with use and manufacturing of inhalers for COPD and asthma. Their analysis estimates that approximately one million less inhalers would be used each year if the reusable inhaler was made available to patients. This also meant a reduction in carbon emissions and net societal savings. Certainly an interesting approach and one that I think could be applied to other therapies and clinical areas.
Lastly, this article published in the BMJ Open is a qualitative study of physicians perspectives from the Northwest Territories (a circumpolar region) which is an area particularly sensitive to the impacts of climate change. The authors interviewed physicians with the aim of getting perspectives on two research questions. The first was about their role in 'planetary health discourses and practice' and the second was about adopting 'patient-planetary health' (P-PH) co-benefit prescribing. This term was new to me, but the authors describe it as "... prescribing habits and clinical advice given to patients that explicitly considers both the patients’ and the planet’s health in the action of prescribing". And cite this paper. Some of the key issues and proposed actions relate to the assessment of climate impact, partnerships and collaboration between disciplines and within government, the key role of Indigenous people in shaping the health system, and the creation of 'secretariat' to do the necessary work across levels of government.