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A direct correlation exists between waste disposal, disease spread and public health. This article systematically reviewed healthcare waste and its implication for public health. This review identified and described the associations and impact of waste disposal on public health.

This paper systematically reviewed the literature on waste disposal and its implications for public health by searching Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA), PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. Of a total of 1,583 studies, 59 articles were selected and reviewed.

The review revealed the spread of infectious diseases and environmental degradation as the most typical implications of improper waste disposal to public health. The impact of waste includes infectious diseases such as cholera, Hepatitis B, respiratory problems, food and metal poisoning, skin infections, and bacteremia, and environmental degradation such as land, water, and air pollution, flooding, drainage obstruction, climate change, and harm to marine and wildlife.

Infectious diseases such as cholera, hepatitis B, respiratory problems, food and metal poisoning, skin infections, bacteremia and environmental degradation such as land, water, and air pollution, flooding, drainage obstruction, climate change, and harm to marine and wildlife are some of the public impacts of improper waste disposal.

Healthcare industry waste is a significant waste that can harm the environment and public health if not properly collected, stored, treated, managed and disposed of. There is a need for knowledge and skills applicable to proper healthcare waste disposal and management. Policies must be developed to implement appropriate waste management to prevent public health threats.

The present study aims to identify the dimensions of destination psychological ownership (DPO) from tourists’ perspectives and to develop a reliable and valid measurement scale.

The mixed method has been applied in this study for the development of a scale to measure psychological ownership (PO) of tourists. The first stage includes identifying the PO dimensions of tourists toward the tourist destinations through in-depth interviews with experts (university professors, managers and experts in the tourism industry). Theme analysis was applied to analyze the data in this stage. A quantitative survey was conducted among tourists during the second stage. Accordingly, a questionnaire was designed and its reliability and validity were investigated. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to examine the structural model and its validity.

The findings revealed that the DPO from tourists’ perspectives includes six dimensions for the sense of attachment, responsibility, the sense of trust, the sense of honor, the sense of gratification and self-identity toward tourist destinations. The validity of the conceptual model was confirmed according to the results of the quantitative section of the study.

The present study is one of the limited numbers of studies coping with PO, especially in the field of tourism, from the view of the consumer. The present study identifies the dimensions of the DPO of tourists and develops an instrument to measure them. Therefore, the developed questionnaire can be used as a valid and reliable instrument to measure the DPO in future research.