How We Might Further Integrate Considerations of Environmental Impact When Assessing the Value of Health Technologies

Barbara Greenwood Dufour (), Laura Weeks, Gino De Angelis, Dave K. Marchand, David Kaunelis, Melissa Severn, Melissa Walter and Nicole Mittmann
Additional contact information
Barbara Greenwood Dufour: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Laura Weeks: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Gino De Angelis: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Dave K. Marchand: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
David Kaunelis: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Melissa Severn: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Melissa Walter: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
Nicole Mittmann: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-8

Abstract: There is growing awareness of the impact health technologies can have on the environment and the negative consequences of these environmental impacts on human health. However, health system decision-makers may lack the expertise, data, or resources to incorporate environmental considerations when making decisions about the adoption and use of health technologies. In this article, we describe how health technology assessment (HTA) is evolving to address climate change by providing health system decision-makers with the information they can use to reduce the impact of health care systems on the environment. Our objective is to consider approaches for including the environment domain when conducting an HTA—in particular, the use of the deliberative process—and for determining when the domain should be included. We explore the challenges of gathering the relevant data necessary to assess the environmental impact of a health technology, and we describe a “triage” approach for determining when an in-depth environmental impact assessment is warranted. We also summarize related initiatives from HTA agencies around the world.

Keywords: environment; health technology assessment; Canada; health systems; climate change; deliberative process; health care; health policy; sustainability; guideline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12017/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12017/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12017-:d:922628

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().