Health sector decarbonisation studies

HEAL Health Systems Sustainability Research Fellow Dr Luise Kazda leads a multidisciplinary research program on reducing the carbon footprint of respiratory inhaler use in Australia. This program of work involves generating a baseline measure of the size of the issue, investigating variations in care, develop an updateable and interactive indicator to track inhaler carbon emissions; qualitative and quantitative analyses to explore consumer awareness and knowledge regarding the environmental impact of respiratory inhalers and to assess how environmental impact influences their choices.

Other major components of HEAL’s health systems sustainability research include projects on tracking, visualising and reducing carbon emissions from volatile anaesthetic gas use, providing research support to clinicians leading sustainability projects in their area of practice, through partnering with NSW Health and Wiser Healthcare, and gathering evidence through developing scoping reviews in this area.

UC project team: Luise Kazda and Sotiris Vardoulakis

Funded by: NHMRC

Bell K.J.L., Kazda L., Parker G. 2023. Asthma in Adults. N Engl J Med. 389(22):2111-2. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2312345.