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Research Article

Prioritizing healthcare waste disposal methods considering environmental health using an enhanced multi-criteria decision-making method

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Article: 2218568 | Received 16 Mar 2023, Accepted 22 May 2023, Published online: 08 Jun 2023
 

ABSTRACT

The Healthcare Waste Disposal Method Selection (HCWDMS) is a complicated problem due to multiple and often contradictory criteria with different importance degrees. Thus, decision-makers are restored to multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to prioritize and select the best HCW disposal methods. This study introduces an enhanced MCDM method to deal with the HCWDMS problem. To address the problem, a comprehensive list of criteria and HCW disposal methods are identified. All the criteria are categorized into four main criteria, and Fuzzy Analysis Hierarchy Process is used to determine the weights of considered criteria and sub-criteria. The study results show that environmental, economic, technical, and social criteria are the most important in selecting disposal methods, respectively. Moreover, the sub-criteria of ‘Health Risk’, ‘Release with health effects’, and ‘Capital cost’ have the highest importance, respectively. Additionally, the methods of ‘Microwave’, ‘Sterilization by autoclave’, and ‘Reverse polymerization’ have the highest priority, respectively.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.