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. 2024 Jul 3;12(2):ofae371.
doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofae371. eCollection 2025 Feb.

Greening Infection Prevention and Control: Multifaceted Approaches to a Sustainable Future

Pamela S Lee  1 , Irene Frantzis  2   3 , Shira R Abeles  4
Affiliations

Greening Infection Prevention and Control: Multifaceted Approaches to a Sustainable Future

Pamela S Lee et al. Open Forum Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Infection prevention and control, or IP&C, is a critical stakeholder in advancing environmental sustainability in health care. IP&C activities seek to ensure safety of processes in health care from an infection perspective, but how these are performed can drive substantial waste and pollution. There are certain IP&C measures that can, without compromising safety or efficiency, be adapted to more environmentally friendly practices and have a high impact benefit to sustainability without affecting patient outcomes. Moreover, IP&C practice stands to be significantly altered by climate change and pollution. Here, we describe the complex interdependence between sustainability, climate change, and IP&C, and opportunities for IP&C to be at the leading edge of optimizing healthcare's environmental footprint.

Keywords: climate change; environmental sustainability; hospital epidemiology; infection prevention and control; pollution.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No reported conflicts.

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