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. 

Call for Papers – Special Theme in Environmental Conservation: Conservation and Restoration for Healthy Environments and People

The Ecological Health Network is excited to announce a call for papers for a Special Theme in the journal Environmental Conservation, focused on Conservation and Restoration for Healthy Environments and People. This Special Theme explores integrative thinking and...

Free online courses and resources on climate and health

Starting to learn about today's environmental crises and their relation to human health can be quite overwhelming given the exponentially increasing number of resources that are becoming available. The good news is that it probably doesn't really matter where you...

The personal connection: Reflections on communication in environmental physiotherapy

A few weeks ago the inaugural Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA) executive committee met for the first ever online meeting to get to know each other, get an understanding of the status quo of the association 3 months after it's official launch and plan some...

Launching the environmental physiotherapy education inspiration-base

As I am writing this, the lands and people of this world are being ravaged by yet another war, adding, what feels like, crisis upon crisis upon crisis. The crisis in Syria is still ongoing. Last year, the IPCC issued its starkest warning about global warming yet....

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
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