Healthcare professionals invited to take part in the REDUCE Carbon study

Thursday 7 March is World Health Day and this year's theme is Our Planet, Our Health. 

An important study designed by the Asthma team at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, in collaboration with colleagues across the Wessex Asthma Network, is looking at urgent need to reduce the carbon impact of inhalers.

In the UK, over 50 million inhalers are prescribed each year with more than 70% of these containing greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Inhalers account for about 3% of the carbon footprint of the NHS each year.

All healthcare professionals from primary and secondary care are being invited to take part in a 10-minute study to look at whether prescribing choice for asthma inhalers are influenced by knowledge of the carbon footprint.

We know both prescribing and non-prescribing healthcare professionals have influence on inhaler choice so we would encourage everyone to take part.

Dr Thomas Brown, Principal Investigator of the REDUCE study at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, said: "The organisers of World Health Day are asking us to 'Re-imagine our World' and focus on a healthier tomorrow.

"Through the REDUCE Carbon study we are looking to do just that. We hope that we can explore the carbon footprint of inhalers and through that, raise awareness of the things that we can do in healthcare to be kinder to our planet.

"REDUCE Carbon is a pivotal study that I am proud to have been working on. I really encourage healthcare professionals to take part in the 10-minute survey and to join me and the study team in re-imagining our world."

To take part in the study and to find out more, please head to https://reduce.pttu.org.uk/

Please open the website platform by copying and pasting the web address into Google Chrome.

A visual explainer is also available on YouTube.