ArticleFuture healthcare journal2024
Travel-associated carbon emissions of patients receiving cancer treatment from an urban safety net hospital.
Article in Future healthcare journal, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Longitudinal Analysis of Manually and Automatically Classified Circulating Tumor Biomarkers and their Prediction of Survival in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2026Article
- Carbon Emissions Associated with Patient Travel for Visits at a Pediatric Tertiary Care Center: A Retrospective Analysis.Plastic surgery (Oakville, Ont.) · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence in multidisciplinary tumor boards enhancing decision making and clinical outcomes in oncology.iScience · 2025Review
- The carbon footprint of modern imaging.Current opinion in urology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Healthcare transportation, particularly the transportation of patients to access healthcare services, is a significant source of carbon emissions. This study aims to estimate the carbon emissions of patient transportation among patients receiving cancer care at an urban community safety net hospital. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of patients seen at the oncology clinic of an urban community safety net hospital between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023. Patients with at least one in-person visit in 1 year, documented home addresses, and oncologic diagnoses were included in the study. The distance between each patient's home address and the hospital was calculated using the Google Map API key and a macro to calculate distance in metres. The total estimated carbon emissions were calculated using the EPA equivalencies calculator. The primary outcome was carbon emissions from patients' round-trip travel from home to hospital. Results: From 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023, 13,970 visits were made to the oncology clinic. Of these, 8,235 visits made by 1,080 patients met the criteria for inclusion in the final analysis. Of the 8,235 visits recorded, 5,095 (61.8%) were follow-up/laboratory visits. The 1,080 patients who attended the clinic had a mean age of 63.8 years; 700 (64.8%) were male, and 525 (48.6%) were Black or African-American. Breast cancer was the most common diagnosis, accounting for 423 (39.2%) of cancer diagnoses. Each patient travelled 4.8 (0.3-149.3) miles for a one-way trip and 9.6 (0.7-298.6) miles for a round trip to receive cancer care. Approximately 1,520 (280-119,440) g carbon were emitted per patient visit. A total of 79,582 round-trip miles was calculated for the 8,235 visits made by all patients within 1 year, which corresponds to 31,832 kg CO Conclusion: Travel to receive cancer care is associated with significant carbon emissions and poses a climate and public health risk. Efforts to decrease the overall carbon footprint of cancer treatment are needed to minimise the contributions of cancer treatment to climate change.
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