Carbon Emissions From Patient Travel for Health Care
This cross-sectional study estimated that annual patient health care-related travel in the US generated 35.7 Mt CO2e, which accounts for a small but important proportion of total health care-related emissions in the US. These findings are essential for informing health care policy decisions and suggest that strategies such as telehealth and the adoption of electric vehicles may contribute to a small but significant reduction in health care-related GHG emissions.
Authors
- Alexander P. Cole
- Zhiyu Qian
- Marianne Leitsmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4605-2020)
- Sascha Ahyai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-5470)
- Stacy Loeb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3933-9207)
- Chad Ellimoottil
- Hanna Zurl
- Muhieddine Labban (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4580-1915)
- Stuart R. Lipsitz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2619-1389)
- Hari S. Iyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7596-9049)
- Filippo Dagnino
- Stephan M. Korn
- Daniel R. Stelzl
- Quoc-Dien Trinh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6752-0388)
Institutions
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- Medical University of Graz (AT)
- University of Michigan (US)
- NYU Langone Health (US)
- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (DE)
- IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital (IT)
- Medical University of Vienna (AT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- JAMA Network Open
- Published
- 2025-03-31
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2513
- Citations
- 15
- Primary Topic
- Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.00