Vaccination programmes are used to prevent the transmission of flu, and to reduce the cases and severity of flu in the population, which in turn reduces the burden on healthcare services. Sustainable Healthcare Coalition member, AstraZeneca conducted a care pathway assessment to determine the impacts of treating flu and compare that to the impacts of vaccination, using UK experience as its basis.
Globally, it is recognised that health and care systems are undergoing transformative change to adapt to the needs of patients and communities, while coming under increasing pressure to be financially, socially and environmentally sustainable. Appraising the sustainability of care pathways is seen as a crucial step to enabling the move to a more sustainable health system.
The AstraZeneca study uses the Sustainable Care Pathways Guidance to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the management of seasonal influenza. It demonstrates that vaccination can reduce the impact of seasonal flu, by decreasing incidence of disease in the general population and leading to fewer primary and secondary care interventions. This directly affects the environmental impact associated with flu management and understanding this relationship is an important step towards a more sustainable treatment paradigm for this debilitating disease.