Sustainability and solidarity in health care provision

The health care sector is a major factor in the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. It also has other negative environmental impacts: the
spillage of medicines and disposables, antibiotics in ground and surface water, etc. The environmental impact is not only a problem from a sustainability perspective, it is also a cause of disease itself.

Zorginstituut Nederland – responsible for solidarity, quality and equitable access in Dutch health care – wants us to do research on this topic. (How) should sustainability of health care be taken into account in decisions about what treatments are included in the basic health insurance?

The thesis involves both literature studies, conceptual analysis and interviews with key stakeholders:

• Describing the environmental impact of health care;
• exploring if solidarity gives reason to take sustainability into account in health care priorities;
• what dilemmas can occur between preserving/promoting health and promoting sustainable health care?;
• what are the possibilities and impossibilities for taking environmental impact into account in decisions to include or exclude medical
  treatments in basic health insurance (“pakketbeslissingen”) How acceptable are such policies?

Interested or want to know more? Please contact Marcel Verweij (marcel.verweij@wur.nl) (add thesiscoordination.hso@wur.nl in the CC).