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. 

Coming soon: The Environmental Physiotherapy Community Roundtable 2021

It is that time of the year again. Time for the next environmental physiotherapy roundtable, but with a twist. In its third iteration, we are pleased to invite you to the first-ever multilingual Environmental Physiotherapy Community Roundtable! Having grown to over...

Monkey business – Pain in humans and other animals

As a veterinary and human physical therapist and wildlife rehabilitator, specialised in primates, I am intrigued by the differences and (more interesting) the similarities between species. When it comes to pain, there’s a large variety in behaviours. This variety in...

Gaza and the Crimes of War and Ecocide: A Crisis of Humanity and Environment

The Gaza Strip, a small coastal enclave home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has long been at the epicentre of conflict, displacement, and human tragedy. However, recent escalations have brought Gaza not only into the global spotlight as a humanitarian disaster...

A walking-based program to address the physical, mental and social aspects of low back pain: A single-case study

Last sprint in this Bachelor of Physiotherapy. Our bachelor thesis needs to be innovative! Looking for a partnership with a technology company to use micro sensors to assess the gait quality of patients. A professor comes with another great idea: prove that a...

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