Hospital Food Waste Trends: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Objective: Food waste in hospitals has a significant impact on environmental sustainability. The effect of food waste includes the potential for pollution, eutrophication, and global warming, all of which are highly destructive to the Earth’s ecology. This study aims to determine the trends of hospital food service based on hospital waste to achieve a sustainable hospital. Material and Methods: This study examined 137 articles from the Scopus database using the descriptive-analytic method. The records issued between 2018 to 2022 that were gathered based on the keywords “hospital,” and “food,” and “waste” were used in this exploration investigation. Results: The result indicated that the three-year (93 papers) analysis trend of hospital food waste has been toward developing sustainable hospitals. The top three keywords are waste (3.3%), food (3.09%), and hospital (2.06%). The hospital food waste was positively associated with the food, food service, and hospital assessment, with correlation values ranging from 0.76 to 0.85 (p-value≥0.70). The cluster’s themes on hospital food were waste food contamination (36.13%), environmental sustainability (34.45%), and hospital food services (29.4%). Conclusion: Addressing hospital food waste is crucial for achieving sustainable hospital development. Managing food waste is essential to achieve sustainability in hospitals as it produces the highest amount compared to other sectors.