ReviewFrontiers in public health
COVID-19 Solutions Are Climate Solutions: Lessons From Reusable Gowns.
Review in Frontiers in public health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Conservation Practices for Personal Protective Equipment: A Systematic Review with Focus on Lower-Income Countries.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Clinical waste management.Infection prevention in practice · 2026Review
- Fogging with Hydrogen Peroxide and Hypochlorous Acid: An Option for Disinfection and Reuse of Disposable Isolation Gowns in Medical Practice.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- From Vulnerability to Strength: Transforming Health Systems for Climate Resilience.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Greening Infection Prevention and Control: Multifaceted Approaches to a Sustainable Future.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Use of personal protective equipment among nurses in the pre- and post-COVID-19 vaccination periods.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2025Article
- Exploring the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions of Hospital Staff and Patients on Environmental Sustainability in the Operating Room: Quality Improvement Survey Study.JMIR perioperative medicine · 2024Article
- Doctors prepare for the "enormous health consequences" of climate change.Nature medicine · 2024Article
- Review
- Rapid In Situ Thermal Decontamination of Wearable Composite Textile Materials.ACS applied materials & interfaces · 2023Article
- A mixed-methods study on end-user perceptions of transitioning to reusable surgical gowns.Surgery open science · 2023Article
- Single-use duodenoscopes are an efficient tool for emergency ERCP in real life.Endoscopy international open · 2022Article
- Transitioning to Environmentally Sustainable, Climate-Smart Radiation Oncology Care.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2022Article
- Validation of the Spanish Version of the Questionnaire on Environmental Awareness in Nursing (NEAT).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The Triple Bottom Line and Stabilization Wedges: A Framework for Perioperative Sustainability.Anesthesia and analgesia · 2022Review
- Can the Profitability of Medical Enterprises Be Improved After Joining China's Centralized Drug Procurement? A Difference-in-Difference Design.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the inadequacy of the U.S. healthcare system to deliver timely and resilient care. According to the American Hospital Association, the pandemic has created a $202 billion loss across the healthcare industry, forcing health care systems to lay off workers and making hospitals scramble to minimize supply chain costs. However, as the demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) grows, hospitals have sacrificed sustainable solutions for disposable options that, although convenient, will exacerbate supply strains, financial burden, and waste. We advocate for reusable gowns as a means to lower health care costs, address climate change, and improve resilience while preserving the safety of health care workers. Reusable gowns' polyester material provides comparable capacity to reduce microbial cross-transmission and liquid penetration. In addition, previous hospitals have reported a 50% cost reduction in gown expenditures after adopting reusable gowns; given the current 2000% price increase in isolation gowns during COVID-19, reusable gown use will build both healthcare resilience and security from price fluctuations. Finally, with the United States' medical waste stream worsening, reusable isolation gowns show promising reductions in energy and water use, solid waste, and carbon footprint. The gowns are shown to withstand laundering 75-100 times in contrast to the single-use disposable gown. The circumstances of the pandemic forewarn the need to shift our single-use PPE practices to standardized reusable applications. Ultimately, sustainable forms of protective equipment can help us prepare for future crises that challenge the resilience of the healthcare system.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.