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. 

An evidence-based guide for decarbonizing physiotherapy clinics

Climate change is the largest threat to human health and wellbeing globally (WHO, 2021). The healthcare industry itself currently contributes to fuelling the climate crisis with its emissions and material consumption (Karliner et al., 2020). There has been much...

Building the sustainable healthcare movement

The Environmental Physiotherapy Association and Health Care Without Harm Europe are excited to announce a new strategic partnership to advance the sustainable healthcare movement. Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Europe exists to create a sustainable healthcare sector....

What am I supposed to do about planetary health as a physiotherapist – Reflections on planetary health, sustainability and the boundaries of physiotherapy

When I first became interested in planetary health and environmental physiotherapy, I found myself asking the same question that I now hear from many colleagues: “Interesting. But what does that have to do with physiotherapy?” If I am honest, I was not being...

Physiopunk – Speculative fiction for future physiotherapies

Environmental and sustainability education is often conspicuous in its absence from public health and healthcare professional programmes around the world. Yet to respond to the diverse and complex social, ecological and health challenges we are facing everywhere today...

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

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