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. 

Join

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. 

Environmental physiotherapy at the bottom of the Arctic Sea

A little over one year ago, one of our first-year physiotherapy students at UiT The Arctic University of Norway wrote a fictional account of a future in which multidisciplinary teams of natural scientists, physiotherapists and many others were tasked to sail to the...

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...

The EPA Student Assembly

Students have been a critical part of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association since day one. The unquestionable passion of physiotherapy students wishing to learn how they can contribute to doing something positive for their environment as part of the profession...

Environmental Physiotherapy at the CSP Conference 2025

Thanks to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Environmental Physiotherapy will be featured prominently at the upcoming CSP Conference 2025 in Newport, Wales, from 21st to 22nd November.On Saturday 22nd November from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM we will run a symposium...

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
we would love to hear from you anytime

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