Uppsala University in international initiative for eco-directed prescribing of drugs

(Image removed) Stuart Gibb, University of the Highlands and Islands, visits the Biomedical Centre

Modern drugs bring both opportunities and challenges. They help us to live longer and healthier lives but can also reach the environment through wastewater and affect entire ecosystems. As international studies have detected increasing concentrations of pharmaceuticals in both animals and nature, it has become obvious that global efforts are necessary. Recently, researchers at Uppsala University and the Scottish University of the Highlands and Islands teamed up to take the next step in an ongoing collaboration.

“In Scotland, 110 million prescriptions are filled out each year to a population of five million. A substantial amount of these drugs reach the water recipients, where we know it may affect both fish stocks, amphibians and, a few steps up the food chain, humans. Thus, we must act and we have to do it across professional and geographical boundaries,” states Stuart Gibb, Professor and Director at the Environmental Research Institute, during his visit to the Uppsala Biomedical Center.

With a vision for a non-toxic environment, the University of Highlands and Islands has gathered academia, healthcare, industry and authorities in the One Health Breakthrough Partnership – an interdisciplinary initiative to reduce pharmaceutical effluents in the environment. Among several successful initiatives is the work to improve the quality of Caithness General Hospital's wastewater.

(Image removed) Stuart Gibb and Björn Wettermark, Uppsala University

“Hospitals produce disproportionately large emissions of, among other things, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory substances. Our collaboration with Caithness General Hospital resulted in them being the first hospital ever to receive an Alliance for Water Stewardship accreditation and our efforts being awarded the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Award 2022. These are recognitions that provide important inspiration in our work to engage doctors, patients and policy makers. Well, in fact the entire society,” says Stuart Gibb.

Estimations indicate that pharmaceutical effluents already within a few decades can cause loss in aquatic life and societal costs if adequate measures are not taken to prevent them reaching the water environment. As a contribution to a sustainable future, Uppsala University, the University of Highlands and Islands and NHS Highland, among others, are collaborating in Developing frameworks for eco-directed sustainable prescribing, a project that, with a grant from the UKRI Medical Research Council, aims to implement an environmental perspective when making prescribing decisions.

“Our research group at the Faculty of Pharmacy is currently engaged in a network including The Swedish MPA's Knowledge centre for Drugs in the environment, the Swedish Drug & Therapeutics Committees and the Swedish National Association of Water Supplies, and we will now utilize this experience in an international context. In addition to our positive experiences from previous collaborations with Scottish colleagues, we see numerous scientific and cultural possibilities with the University of Highlands and Islands that we hope to translate into fruitful education and research,” says Björn Wettermark, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology and host during the Scottish visit to the Faculty of Pharmacy.

The faculties will next submit joint applications with a focus on comparative studies regarding the prescribing of drugs, scientific exchanges and a planned translation of the Faculty of Pharmacy's elective course Drugs in the environment into a British context. A follow-up meeting in Thurso, the northernmost town on the British mainland, will be arranged in October.

FACTS

• Uppsala University, University of the Highlands and Islands, University of Nottingham, NHS Highland, James Hutton Institute, Scottish Water and Scottish Environment Protection Agency are participating in Developing frameworks for eco-directed sustainable prescribing.
• The Scottish delegation's visit to Sweden was funded by the University of Highlands and Islands WaterHub Knowledge Exchange initiative.
• The University of the Highlands and Islands received university status in 2011 and is composed of 12 campuses
• The Environmental Research Institute is located at North Highland College, Thurso – the most northerly town on the British mainland.
• The Scottish delegation's visit to Sweden also included meetings with Region Stockholm, SLU and Lif: The research-based pharmaceutical industry.

LEARN MORE

• Developing frameworks for eco-directed sustainable prescribing
• Environmental Research Institute (UK)
• Drugs in the environment (7,5 cr) (In Swedish)
• Research in Pharmacoepidemiology at Uppsala University
• Assessing hospital impact on pharmaceutical levels in a rural 'source-to-sink' water system (Science of The Total Environment, 2020)

CONTACT

(Image removed) Björn Wettermark, Professor
Faculty of Pharmacy
bjorn.wettermark@farmaci.uu.se

 text & photo: Magnus Alsne