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. 

Student opinions: Should physiotherapists learn about environmental sustainability?

When I told some of my peers that I was doing my dissertation on environmental sustainability in physiotherapy, I got lots of comments like “But… why?” or “Wow that’s very niche!” With a degree with such a high workload already, why would you add sustainability to the...

Physiotherapy and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration?

Though the official launch is scheduled for World Environment Day on 5 June 2021, this year marks the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This United Nations effort is based on the recognition that 'there has never been a more urgent need to restore...

Co-creating health and wellbeing

“At least I can still become an Adaptive Surfer!” As I surface in ICU a flash of hope captures my imagination, lifts my spirits, and draws me forward with the promise of adventure. Lying flat ‘splat’ on my back my worldview is limited to perforated ceiling tiles and...

Have we ever treated patients yet? Actor-network theory and the changing patient in a changing world

Have you ever wondered who or what the patient truly is? In medicine, the patient is defined as “a person who is ill or undergoing treatment for a disease.” (Dictionary, 2023) Yet, in my opinion, this definition paints a narrow, one-dimensional portrait of the patient...

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
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