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. 

An evidence-based guide for decarbonizing physiotherapy clinics

Climate change is the largest threat to human health and wellbeing globally (WHO, 2021). The healthcare industry itself currently contributes to fuelling the climate crisis with its emissions and material consumption (Karliner et al., 2020). There has been much...

Environmental Physiotherapy at the WCPT Congress 2021

The Environmental Physiotherapy Association was formed only a week ago and we could not have asked for a better start. The quickly growing membership is clearly showing that there is a huge amount of interest and enthusiasm in the field of environmental physiotherapy...

Potential Benefits and Challenges of Art–Science Integration in Planetary Health and Environmental Physiotherapy

Artists and scientists both observe and interpret the world, but they do so through different epistemologies. While these disciplines are distinct, encounters between them can generate new forms of understanding (Zhu & Goyal, 2018). Edwards (2009), a Harvard...

The WHO Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health: A brief analysis with a view to the role of physiotherapy organisations

On 15 May 2025, the World Health Assembly (WHO) adopted the inaugural Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health (2025–2028) during the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA78). The plan aligns with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and...

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