Disability-adjusted life years are a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death. Researchers determined the DALY rate after quantifying the healthcare system’s impact on pollution generation. They estimated that 12 percent of acid rain, 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 10 percent of smog formation were all attributable to healthcare.
“While some pollution is currently inevitable in our efforts to safely care for patients, there is a tremendous amount of waste in our healthcare system,” said study co-author Jodi Sherman, MD, anesthesiologist with Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “People are trying to reduce waste from a cost perspective. But there is a public health perspective as well that is important. Protecting public health is also an issue of patient safety.”
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