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aboutVCS.html
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<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="VCSstyle.css">
<link href="media/paris.png" rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" />
<title> Green Digital Health System Planning and Monitoring Tool</title>
</head>
<body>
<header class="row col-12">
<div class="header-title col-10">
<h1>Green Digital Health Tool</h1>
</div>
<div class="header-brand col-2">
<a href="https://www.paris-de.org">
<img src="media/Paris DE colour.png" alt="PARIS-DE logo" style="height:70px; align:right;"></a></div>
</header>
<nav class="row col-12">
<ul>
<li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="thesaurus.html">Thesaurus</a></li>
<li><a href="howto.html">How to use this tool</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<div class="main row col-12">
<div class="col-1">
<p></p>
</div>
<div class="core col-10">
<h2>Why is it important to consider environmental issues in Digital Health?</h2>
<p>Digital technologies and infrastructure have environmental impacts associated with the energy needed to collect, store, process, and analyse data. While it is extremely difficult to quantify, estimates suggest that the digital sector accounts for between 2.1-3.9% of global greenhouse emissions (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100340" target="_blank">Freitag 2021</a>). The digital sector also has environmental impacts associated with the mining of natural resources needed to build digital technologies and infrastructure; the use of other resources, such as water, to provide systems to cool digital servers during use, and the disposal of electronic/hardware waste. It is important that we mitigate these environmental impacts as much as possible, not only to protect the environment, but also as a commitment to health, since environmental impacts adversely affect health, both directly and indirectly.</p>
<p>There is evidence that digital health systems have the potential to reduce the environmental impacts of healthcare in certain scenarios, for example when used in the clinical setting to “replace” in person care. However, there are multiple caveats around this, and many scenarios may lead to digital health systems not reducing environmental burdens as much as anticipated. It is therefore important to consider the environmental impacts of digital health systems.</p>
<p>This does not take away the importance of the need for digital health systems to meet health needs. This is particularly the case in low and middle income countries where health coverage may be limited, and digitalisation may be the only way to meet unmet health needs – not only because of poor infrastructure and lack of healthcare facilities in remote locations, but also because transport costs to reach healthcare facilities may be prohibitive. Digital health systems also offer a way for healthcare systems to adapt and become more resilient to adverse environmental events, particularly in regions exposed to climate related challenges such as flooding. They can also be used to create early warning systems for flooding or extreme heat.</p>
<p>Ultimately balancing economic, human and environmental health, and social justice, will play out differently in every place and time and this tool is not recommending a one size fits all approach. Rather, it is highlighting the questions that need to be answered when considering the environmental sustainability of digital health systems, and the context against which those answers should be considered.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-1">
<p></p>
</div>
</div>
<footer class="col-12">
<ul>
<li><a href="index.html"><span>Back to the start</span></a></li>
<li><a href="thesaurus.html"><span>Thesaurus</span></a></li>
<li><a href="tool_dev.html"><span>About this tool</span></a></li>
<li>This version is a prototype and will not save text. Please do not share.</li>
</ul>
</footer>
</body>
</html>