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. 

COVID-19, healthcare and the environment (the long read)

I remain unsure how to start this blogpost. The only thing that seems fairly clear is that I am trying to make sense of the current COVID-19 pandemic and I suspect that the same is true for many others. Because of my recent preoccupation with the implicit and explicit...

The struggle for the decolonisation of both people and nature

In Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter Aotearoa), upon the meeting of strangers with Māori (the Indigenous people of Aotearoa), oftentimes you’ll hear the question “Ko wai koe?”, meaning “Who are you?”. The word ‘wai’ also translates to mean ‘water’. Thus for Māori, the...

Are Forestry Methods Relevant for Physiotherapists?

Many physiotherapists recommend that their patients actively use nature to aid in recovery. It is important to engage in primary prevention and health promotion efforts to secure easily accessible natural spaces, such as old, pristine forests. This may include...

Launching the Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023

Over the last 3 months, the EPA exec and a group of EPA members have steadily been working on our biggest project yet and we are beyond excited to finally launch it today:  The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 (EPT...

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

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