Advancing an environmentally responsible physiotherapy

 

The world faces complex and interrelated crises… Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, rapid urbanization, geopolitical conflict and militarization, demographic change, population displacement, poverty, and widespread inequity create risks of future crises even more severe than those experienced today. Responses require investments that integrate planetary, societal, community and individual health and well-being (WHO 2021 Geneva Charter for Wellbeing)

 

 The impact of human activities on our planet’s natural systems has been intensifying rapidly in the past several decades, leading to disruption and transformation of most natural systems. These disruptions in the atmosphere, oceans, and across the terrestrial land surface are not only driving species to extinction, they pose serious threats to human health and wellbeing. Characterising and addressing these threats requires a paradigm shift (Myers, 2017)

Action at the level of direct drivers of nature decline, although necessary, is not sufficient … a sustainable global future’ is ‘only possible with urgent transformative change that tackles the root causes: the interconnected economic, socio-cultural, demographic, political, institutional, and technological indirect drivers behind the direct drivers (Diaz et al., 2019)

About

An international community of academics, clinicians, practitioners and students interested in exploring and advancing the field of environmental physiotherapy. 

Blog

Follow our latest musings on environmental physiotherapy. Ideas, inspiration, news, publications, events, and more. 

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Become part of the first international community of physiotherapists with an interest in researching, developing, and practising physiotherapy at a planetary scale. 

Resources

A growing selection of resources carefully selected by members of the EPA to inspire your thinking and practice of environmental physiotherapy. 

Moving physiotherapy outdoors

Lancashire and North West England. The wettest part of a wet country. So, maybe not the first place one would think of when developing a business model incorporating outdoor rehabilitation. However, the flip side of our, at times, particularly soggy climate brings a...

Launching the environmental physiotherapy education inspiration-base

As I am writing this, the lands and people of this world are being ravaged by yet another war, adding, what feels like, crisis upon crisis upon crisis. The crisis in Syria is still ongoing. Last year, the IPCC issued its starkest warning about global warming yet....

Can greenspace exposure improve pain outcomes?

Have you ever told a patient to spend more time in greenspaces to help reduce their pain? I haven’t, but this simple intervention may improve pain outcomes for our patients. It was not something I had given a lot of thought to, until a discussion with colleagues last...

Is Environmental Healthcare Feasible for the U.S. Healthcare System?

U.S. American healthcare is a huge business. The U.S. “spends the most of any nation by far on its health care system, nearly one-fifth of GDP, “which makes it a trillion-dollar business (1). Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, author of An American Sickness, explains that...

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