Key Points
Examining health records of more than 2,36,000 people with asthma, researchers found that the overall carbon footprint attributed to asthma care added up to 7,50,540 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of greenhouse gas emissions per year when scaled to the entire UK asthma population..
In nearly half of these patients (47 per cent), asthma was poorly controlled and contributed to excess greenhouse gas emissions of 3,03,874 tonnes CO2e per year, equivalent to emissions from more than 1,24,000 homes in the UK, the researchers estimated...
The team, including scientists from the research-based biopharmaceutical company Astrazeneca, said that 90 per cent of these excess greenhouse gas emissions comprised of inappropriate use of SABAs that contain drugs to quickly open airways for stopping asthmatic symptoms such as wheezing...
Our study indicates that poorly controlled asthma contributes to a large proportion of asthma-care related greenhouse gas emissions with inappropriate SABA use emerging as the single largest contributor, the researchers wrote...
The study is the first to quantify asthma care-based greenhouse gas emissions according to prescribing practices in the UK, with the specific objective of estimating greenhouse gas emissions related to the management of well-controlled versus poorly controlled asthma, they said...
