The carbon footprint of Bubble-PAPR™: A novel item of personal protective equipment.

Background: Personal protective equipment has important environmental impacts, assessing these impacts is therefore an important element of personal protective equipment design. We applied carbon footprinting methodology to Bubble-PAPR, a novel, part-reusable and part-recyclable powered air-purifying respirator, designed at our institution. Current guidance states that disposable respirator masks can be worn for 1-h in the United Kingdom, whilst the Bubble-PAPR allows prolonged use.

Reducing the carbon footprint for a 30-bed haemodialysis unit by changing the delivery of acid concentrate supplied by individual 5 L containers to a central delivery system.

Background: Haemodialysis treatments generate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mainly as a result of the equipment, consumables and pharmaceuticals required. An internal audit demonstrated a 33% wastage of acid concentrate when using individual 5.0 L containers at a 1:44 dilution ratio.

Green endoscopy: British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), Joint Accreditation Group (JAG) and Centre for Sustainable Health (CSH) joint consensus on practical measures for environmental sustainability in endoscopy.

GI endoscopy is highly resource-intensive with a significant contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and waste generation. Sustainable endoscopy in the context of climate change is now the focus of mainstream discussions between endoscopy providers, units and professional societies. In addition to broader global challenges, there are some specific measures relevant to endoscopy units and their practices, which could significantly reduce environmental impact.

Estimating the size of urban populations using Landsat images: a case study of Bo, Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Background: This is the third paper in a 3-paper series evaluating alternative models for rapidly estimating neighborhood populations using limited survey data, augmented with aerial imagery.

Methods: Bayesian methods were used to sample the large solution space of candidate regression models for estimating population density.

Results: We accurately estimated the population densities and counts of 20 neighborhoods in the city of Bo, Sierra Leone, using statistical measures derived from Landsat multi-band satellite imagery.

Stratified Sampling of Neighborhood Sections for Population Estimation: A Case Study of Bo City, Sierra Leone.

There is a need for better estimators of population size in places that have undergone rapid growth and where collection of census data is difficult. We explored simulated estimates of urban population based on survey data from Bo, Sierra Leone, using two approaches: (1) stratified sampling from across 20 neighborhoods and (2) stratified single-stage cluster sampling of only four randomly-sampled neighborhoods. The stratification variables evaluated were (a) occupants per individual residence, (b) occupants per neighborhood, and (c) residential structures per neighborhood.