Health care sector leaves small environmental footprint

The Associated Press reports that the first estimate of health care's carbon footprint has found that the industry "emits less than its share of the gases that promote global warming, compared to its size in the economy."

"Hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies and the rest of the sector contributed 8 percent of U.S. emissions, according to an analysis in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Health care makes up 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product." The analysis was done by the University of Chicago based on 2007 federal health spending data and takes power consumption and emissions into account. Many hospitals are trying to reduce their emissions (Johnson, 11/10).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.