Antoniadou, M.; Chrysochoou, G.; Tzanetopoulos, R.; Riza, E. Green Dental Environmentalism among Students and Dentists in Greece. Sustainability2023, 15, 9508.
Antoniadou, M.; Chrysochoou, G.; Tzanetopoulos, R.; Riza, E. Green Dental Environmentalism among Students and Dentists in Greece. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9508.
Antoniadou, M.; Chrysochoou, G.; Tzanetopoulos, R.; Riza, E. Green Dental Environmentalism among Students and Dentists in Greece. Sustainability2023, 15, 9508.
Antoniadou, M.; Chrysochoou, G.; Tzanetopoulos, R.; Riza, E. Green Dental Environmentalism among Students and Dentists in Greece. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9508.
Abstract
As in every workplace, human sustainability in dental enterprises is connected to air and water quality, eco-friendly and naturally designed working spaces and 4R’s culture. Purpose of this study is to access the preferences and knowledge on circular economy and green building construction in a sample of students and dentists in Greece. Students (N1=93) and dentists (N2= 126) filled in e-questionnaires from April to December 2022. The response rate was 17,88% for N1 and 1.94% for N2. Data revealed that both students and dentists lack knowledge on circular economy (N1=67.7%, N2=68,25%), EU regulations on amalgam disposal (N1=64.5%, N2=58.73%) and plastic recycling (N1=76.34%, N2=76,98) while they do recycle at home (N1= 80.6%, N2=82.54%) and have participated in voluntary environmental actions (N1=58.1%, N2=66.67%). Gender influences the importance of factors related to green dental practices, with women students being more prone to answer positively as important for increase costs for network changes (p=0.02), lack of environmental awareness of manufacturers (p=0.057), and poor wastewater management (p=0.01). Students from urban areas are more prone to answer positively for lack of state financial support (p=0.02), low level of green design in the building (p=0.03), low direct financial benefit of a green dental office (p=0.04), low benefit to the reputation of the green dental office (p=0.02), lack of continuing education training seminars on green dentistry (p=0.05). For dentists, no significant relationships were observed except of a weak positive relationship in increase in costs for changes related to utility networks (p=0.08) while increased wasteful energy (p=0.12) and waste of dental materials (p=0.19) seemed important only for dentists in urban areas. Women dentists were more prone to answer positively on wasting energy (p=0.024) and use of unapproved disinfection products (p=0.036). The findings contribute ideas and solutions on green dental office buildings and sustainable behaviors through educational activities and social perspective of factors such as age, experience in dentistry, gender, and urbanism. It also inspires future multi-disciplinary research on dental quality assurance, psychology of environmentalism, economics, and behavioral science in dentistry.
Keywords
green dentistry; green dental settings; sustainable buildings, circular economy, green building; environmentalism, energy saving; willingness to pay; environmental belief
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
