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. 

Transforming Physiotherapy Education for Planetary Health: A European Exchange of Ideas, Practices, and Pathways Forward

From March 24th – 28th, over 20 educators, researchers, and leaders of Physiotherapy Departments across Europe—spanning from Portugal, Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and Denmark—joined for a powerful deep-dive...

Launching the Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023

Over the last 3 months, the EPA exec and a group of EPA members have steadily been working on our biggest project yet and we are beyond excited to finally launch it today:  The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 (EPT...

The GB Row Challenge 2024: Experiences from an environmental physiotherapist rowing around Great Britain

I was initially drawn to the environmental aspect of the GB Row Challenge, I thought that collecting environmental DNA and microplastic data from the UK coastline was a genius way of giving reason and justification to the trip of a lifetime. I was unable to finish the...

Adapting to the “New Normal”: Practical Strategies for Physical Therapists to Mitigate Wildfire Smoke Health Impacts

The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was the most destructive on record, burning over 15 million hectares —more than double the previous record. This rise in wildfire frequency and intensity poses significant challenges to public health and the entire healthcare system....

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

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