DYNAMIC: Life Cycle Assessment of a Digital Health Intervention in Tanzania

20.6 tons of CO2-eq per year were emitted by the DYNAMIC digital health project across 40 Tanzanian health facilities. This dataset contains the life cycle assessment results quantifying the raw material resources, energy, and environmental impacts of the tablet-based clinical decision support system. The data was authored by Maxime Karlen and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Compare greenhouse gas emissions from medical supplies, digital supplies, and logistics based on the quantified sources.
• Assess the environmental trade-offs of digital health interventions based on the reported increase in carbon footprint versus antibiotic stewardship savings.
• Model resource depletion impacts based on fossil energy and mineral resource use figures.
• Evaluate human health and ecosystem damage metrics like DALYs and Potentially Disappeared Fraction of Species.

Strengths

• Includes specific quantified outputs: 20.6 tons of CO2-eq, 380 GigaJoules of fossil energy, and 77.9 kg of mineral resources deprived per year.
• Provides a clear geographical and operational scope: 40 health facilities in Tanzania attending 90,992 children over one year.
• Results are broken down by emission source: medical supplies (13 tons), digital supplies (5 tons), and logistics (2.6 tons).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is very small (46.9 KB), suggesting limited scope or highly summarized data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Life cycle assessment conducted to quantify resources and impacts of a health intervention compared to usual care.

Time Range

Covers a one-year period of intervention implementation.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 06:25:09; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Tanzania, specifically 40 primary care health facilities.