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. 

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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. 

Access to clean and healthy environments is now a universal human right

The United Nations (UN) declared access to clean and healthy environments a universal human right in July 2022. This historic decision was voted in favour by 161 countries. But what exactly does this mean? And how does this apply to health care and rehabilitation?...

Women, Environment and Health from Personal to Global Perspectives

I grew up in the west of Ireland, where the land wasn’t something you visited, it was something you belonged to. As a child, I’d disappear for hours into fields and bogs, building shelters, shaping clay from the stream, following something instinctive in my hands. No...

Un taller de fisioterapia sostenible en la Facultat de Fisioteràpia en la Universitat de València

El lunes 19 de junio 2023, un grupo de estudiantes de Grado, Máster y Doctorado de Fisioterapia de la Universitat de València asistieron durante todo el día a un taller sobre Fisioterapia Medioambiental. El taller se organizó gracias a los esfuerzos del Comisión de...

Access to nature is an important health issue

Nature and outdoor recreation are important for public health. As a health promotion endeavor, physiotherapists should engage in public health work and policymaking to secure the public (and thereby patients) easy access to green and blue environments. This piece...

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