Page 283 - GHES-3-3

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Carbon footprint of smartphones in healthcare

Moreover, the general public increasingly relies on complex network of devices supporting healthcare delivery
smartphones for personal and health-related information, and health monitoring.
making their environmental impact even more critical. Each day, approximately 570,000 ChatGPT queries are
The use of smartphones proves to be beneficial for made from iOS and Android platforms, contributing to a
multiple reasons, such as confirming facts, searching for total of 10 million daily queries across all devices (Alhur,
information, creating personalized pages, and setting 2024). The scale of these healthcare queries demonstrates
up alerts (White, 2010). The democratization of health the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) systems into
information through digital platforms has empowered daily information seeking. Gemini’s smartphone app
patients and expanded the environmental footprint of receives 1,688 daily downloads, with 8.5 billion daily
healthcare information delivery. This shift from printed searches on its web-based platform (Chaffey, 2024).
materials to digital resources represents a transformation Notably, about 7% of web searches – about 60 million daily
in how health knowledge is disseminated and consumed, using the Google search engine are related to health care
with corresponding implications for environmental (Drees, 2019). This statistic underscores the importance of
sustainability. digital platforms in the lives of patients and physicians.
The rapid growth of digital technology use is Growing reliance on smartphones for LLM queries
demonstrated by the number of connected devices per suggests an increasing carbon emission. For the planet,
person worldwide, which rose from 2.4 in 2018 to 3.6 in CO emission of about 60 kg or less is considered a
2
2023 (Eeckhout, 2024). Smartphones and other mobile favorable emission threshold for individual devices,
devices are a vital part of the healthcare landscape, but their providing a benchmark to evaluate smartphone emissions
widespread use has a significant environmental impact (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,
(Shin & Dedrick, 2021). As manufacturers rapidly introduce 2024). The threshold of 60 kg CO emission represents a
2
updated versions of smartphones, these devices continue sustainability target that balances technological utility with
to proliferate. By 2018, 84% of families in the United environmental responsibility.
States owned a smartphone, demonstrating how mobile
technology has become ingrained in daily life (Martin, Physicians report an average daily smartphone usage
2021). Digital development raises sustainability concerns: of 1 – 5 h, primarily for searching diagnostic symptoms,
Digital technology and information and communication capturing patient photographs, conducting telehealth
technologies (ICTs) contribute significantly to the global appointments, and furthering their medical education
carbon footprint (Bonab et al., 2023). (Chapala et al., 2024). The use of digital tools shows
a significant shift in clinical practice patterns, with
Research has shown that healthcare professionals are corresponding energy consumption and associated
increasingly dependent on these devices, reflecting a broader emissions. A study found that physicians used non-medical
global trend where smartphone usage reached 6.6 billion apps more frequently than medical apps for calendar and
subscriptions by late 2022. This represents a dramatic web access purposes to contribute to quality patient care.
growth trajectory in clinical settings, with worldwide The integration of smartphones into clinical settings has
adoption projected to more than double – from 3.6 billion occurred rapidly, without considering the environmental
devices in use in 2016 to an estimated 7.5 billion by 2026 risks associated with this technological adoption (Lee
(Ericsson, 2022). The literature defines smartphones in the et al., 2023).
healthcare context as multifunctional electronic devices The lifecycle emissions of smartphones can be divided
that combine standard mobile telecommunications with into three stages: production, usage, and disposal. Each
advanced internet-based clinical applications, enabling stage contributes differently to the overall environmental
everything from remote patient monitoring to point-of- impact of these standard devices. Production contributes
care decision support to ensure quality patient care.
the most emissions driven by mining rare earth elements,
The proliferation of devices in the medical setting raises such as copper, aluminum, gold, palladium, cobalt, and
important questions about their cumulative environmental lithium, and energy-intensive manufacturing processes
impact. The impact suggests the need for sustainable (Cenci et al., 2024). Habitat destruction and water
usage protocols specific to healthcare environments. The pollution exacerbate the ecological impact of mineral
increasing use of smartphone devices reflects the vast extraction, which often takes place in areas with weak
digital infrastructure within contemporary healthcare environmental restrictions (Cordella et al., 2021). The
systems. Moreover, the expansion of connectivity beyond environmental footprint of digital health technologies
smartphones, such as tablets, wearable health monitors, shows regional variation, with smartphone usage having
and other digital health tools, creates an increasingly a significant impact in areas dependent on fossil fuel-

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 275 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.8359