Exercise as Low-Carbon Prevention: A Conceptual Framework of Healthcare Utilization Reduction and Environmental Co-Benefits in Older Adults

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_2How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Elderly; Exercise; Healthcare utilization; Carbon footprint; Waste

Abstract

Healthcare systems contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions as well as hazardous waste, thus may cause negative effect to human health. Reducing healthcare utilization through health promotion may help lower the environmental burden of healthcare systems. This conceptual framework aims to estimate the environmental co-benefit from the exercise program leading to healthcare utilization reduction in elderly. A literature search was conducted in PubMed and EBSCOHost. Hospitalization, acute outpatient or emergency-type utilization, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease were used for scenario-based estimation for greenhouse gas reduction. Hospitalization showed that community-based exercise participation associated with a 46% lower hospitalization risk, equivalent to 20.7 kg CO2-e and 2.53 kg solid waste avoided per acute hospitalization-day, or 63.48 kg CO2-e and 3.27 kg waste per ICU bed-day in an upper-bound scenario. For acute outpatient or emergency-type utilization, reduction scenarios of 13% and 23% were translated into 9.88 and 17.48 kg CO2-e avoided per use, respectively. For type 2 diabetes, a 58% incidence reduction corresponded to 83.52 kg CO2-e avoided per patient-year, or 8,352 kg CO2-e annually per 100 expected cases. For cardiovascular disease, a 28% lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events corresponded to 73.64 kg CO2-e avoided per case or 8.96 kg CO2-e per inpatient bed-day. These estimates suggest that elderly exercise may reduce avoidable healthcare utilization and produce environmental co-benefits, particularly through reduced hospitalization. Indonesian policy application requires local carbon accounting and prospective validation in primary care settings.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ayleen Kosasih
AU  - Muhammad Luthfi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/23
TI  - Exercise as Low-Carbon Prevention: A Conceptual Framework of Healthcare Utilization Reduction and Environmental Co-Benefits in Older Adults
BT  - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference of Vocational Education, Applied Science and Technology (ICVEAST 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 3
EP  - 11
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_2
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_2
ID  - Kosasih2026
ER  -