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. 

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...

Announcing the first-ever international Environmental Physiotherapy Festival 2023

Environmental physiotherapy has gone through an incredible evolution over the last four years. The EPA will soon have over 1000 members, planetary health, environmental and sustainability education is entering physiotherapy curricula everywhere around the world, new...

The EPA joins the Planetary Health Alliance

We are excited to have joined the Planetary Health Alliance, a consortium of over 200 universities, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, and government entities from around the world committed to understanding and addressing global environmental change...

More ways than one

There is every reason to be seriously concerned and even frightened about the future of life and health on the world today. Soil erosion and degradation, loss of biodiversity, global warming, pollution, deforestation, ocean acidification and all the other closely...

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

8 + 1 =