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. 

EPA joins the Physiotherapy and Refugees Education Project (PREP)

Today we are excited to announce that the EPA has joined the Physiotherapy and Refugees Education Project (PREP) as associate partner. PREP is an Erasmus+ project led by the Western University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, Norway. It seeks to address the mismatch...

Planetare Gesundheit in ErgoLogoPhysio – Welche Rolle spielen wir in der Klimakrise?

Die Health for Future Arbeitsgruppe ErgoLogoPhysio (ELP) lädt zusammen mit der Planetary Health Academy der Deutschen Allianz Klimawandel und Gesundheit e.V. (KLUG) zu einer kostenlosen, interaktiven Online-Veranstaltungsreihe zum Thema „Planetare Gesundheit in...

Environmental Physiotherapy at the CSP Conference 2025

Thanks to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Environmental Physiotherapy will be featured prominently at the upcoming CSP Conference 2025 in Newport, Wales, from 21st to 22nd November.On Saturday 22nd November from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM we will run a symposium...

What are allied health professionals’ experiences of using nature-based approaches in Australia?

Ever wonder how other allied health professionals are integrating nature-based approaches into their practice? We conducted a survey of allied health professionals in Australia who were interested in nature-based approaches to find out what they were doing, what...

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