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. 

Physiotherapy and the Philosophy of Anti-Planetary Practice

In a recent article in Cosmos and History, I try to reconstruct the implicit belief systems of people who work against the Earth. Athletes like gymnasts and pole vaulters are counted among these anti-planetary practitioners, and so are many physiotherapists. For all...

Strategies for carbon footprint reduction in research and higher education

Building on insights into the carbon footprint of research and education, I am following my recent post with a list of actionable strategies to reduce ecological impact while maintaining the integrity of scientific inquiry and knowledge dissemination. From...

Nachhaltigkeit im Praxisalltag und der Physiotherapie im Allgemeinen – Präsentation auf der TheraPro 2020 in Stuttgart

New EPA member Hannah Krappmann is grabing the bull by its horns and will be presenting her thoughts on sustainability in physiotherapy at the TheraPro Fair and Congress in Stuttgart Germany between 07.-09.02.2020. Hannah also serves as a current board member in the...

Moving physiotherapy outdoors

Lancashire and North West England. The wettest part of a wet country. So, maybe not the first place one would think of when developing a business model incorporating outdoor rehabilitation. However, the flip side of our, at times, particularly soggy climate brings a...

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