Advancing Environmental Health and Justice: A Call for Assessment and Oversight of Healthcare Waste

Abstract

Healthcare waste adversely impacts society in ways that have been overlooked for decades, an issue that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated significantly. This policy statement addresses the human impacts that occur as healthcare waste is processed, transported, landfilled, or incinerated. With limited federal tracking and lack of regulation, patterns of environmental racism persist. Communities of color and low-income communities most often experience the greatest environmental health burdens through disposal of waste in their communities. Many communities have called for action for decades, as our massive healthcare industry contributes greatly to these harms. Centering these communities, public health professionals must advocate for: 1) Evidence-based federal policies with transparent, accessible data about healthcare waste generation, type, and fate, 2) Leadership within the healthcare industry, from hospitals, accrediting bodies, professional organizations, and medical, health professions, and healthcare administration training programs to address environmental health and justice issues related to waste, 3) Health impact assessments, cost-benefit analyses, and circular economy research with healthcare systems and communities to identify cost-effective, feasible, and just solutions, and 4) Federal initiatives to prioritize funding towards mitigation of cumulative exposures and impacts, reparation for harms, and investment in well-being for communities fenceline to waste—healthcare or otherwise. Some public health experts anticipate that we may be entering a ‘pandemic age,’ which suggests that without intervention, intersecting issues of infectious disease, climate change, waste, and environmental health and justice will remain and reoccur.